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MAN IS A SPIRIT 



MAN IS A SPIRIT 

A COLLECTION OF SPONTANEOUS CASES 
OF DREAM, VISION AND ECSTASY 



BY 
J. ARTHUR HILL 

AUTHOR OF PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATIONS, 
ETC. 




NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



I 



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COPYRIGHT, 1918, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY , 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



APR 121918 

©CI.A492918 



PREFACE 

FACTS differ in importance, but it is a 
fundamental article of the faith of science 
that all facts are important in some degree. The 
import of some of them may not be clear at first, 
but continued collection brings about the pos- 
sibility of valuable inferences. An orbit cannot 
be computed from one or two points given ; many 
are necessary. Similarly a number of facts — 
the more the better — may be required before 
we see their meaning. But there is a meaning, 
and it is worth our while to amass details pa- 
tiently. This is the modern spirit — to inquire 
of Nature instead of building philosophic word- 
structures into the blue. Observation and rec- 
ord are the watchwords. "A large acquaintance 
with particulars often makes us wiser than the 
possession of abstract formulas, however deep," 
says William James in the preface to his "Va- 
rieties of Religious Experience.' , And "par- 
ticulars" may be either subjective or objective. 
A dream is as much of a "fact" as a bomb is. It 



vi PREFACE 

is a psychological fact; the other is a physical 
fact. Collection of psychological facts is a late 
development in science, and we have not got 
far yet, particularly as regards facts of "psychi- 
cal research" kind. But they will turn out im- 
portant, if we study them carefully. 

The present volume, in the selection of its 
facts, may seem to start out from an assumption : 
namely, that human personality is more than a 
collection of material particles, or, crudely and 
popularly put, that there is a spirit in man. But 
it is not an assumption. It is an inference, cau- 
tiously made after years of observation, from 
another range of facts, some of which are de- 
scribed in an earlier volume called "Psychical 
Investigations." This present book, therefore, 
does not stand alone, even as regards its author. 
And its general tendency is supported by a huge 
mass of literature, of which the Proceedings of 
the Society for Psychical Research furnish the 
best illustration from the scientific viewpoint. 
The Society, of course, has no creed. It exists 
for investigation. But in the opinion of most 
investigators its results are strongly suggestive 
of the scheme presented by F. W. H. Myers 
in his great work, "Human Personality and its 



PREFACE vii 

Survival of Bodily Death"; and that scheme my 
own researches have led me to accept. 

It is difficult to give in few words any idea 
of such a large subject, but the following may 
help. 

Telepathy, or transference of ideas from mind 
to mind through channels other than the known 
sensory ones, suggests but does not prove super- 
physical action. 

Clairvoyance, automatic writing, and trance 
speech often produce true matter unknown to 
the sensitive and sometimes unknown to any- 
one present. The supposition of telepathy from 
distant people, who do not know and are not 
known to the sensitive, is a reasonable guess in 
default of anything better, but it does not seem 
likely and in some cases it is unacceptable. And 
a few cases are on record — one in the follow- 
ing pages — of information being given which 
was possessed by no living mind, but which was 
possessed by the person purporting to communi- 
cate. Swedenborg describes an experience of 
this kind, which was taken seriously even by the 
sceptical Kant. 

Apparitions are sometimes seen by sane and 
healthy people, at or after the time of death of 
a person not known to be ill or in danger. Vol- 



viii PREFACE 

ume X. of the Proceedings of the S.P.R. con- 
tains the result of many years' investigation of 
this phase, and the "chance" explanation is math- 
ematically ruled out. 

Many curious physical phenomena, such as 
movement of objects without contact, occur with- 
out the conscious will of those present, and in- 
formation is given, sometimes going beyond the 
knowledge of the sitters. 

Other phenomena occur or are alleged to oc- 
cur. The scientific study of them has only just 
begun, and no certainty is yet attainable re- 
garding some of them. Suspense of judgment 
is in many cases the correct attitude, but the 
result of an individual's experience may be suf- 
ficient to justify his acceptance of the spiritist 
explanation at least as a working hypothesis. 
As for me, I am always ready to change, if a 
more reasonable explanation can be given. 

J. A. H. 

Bradford. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I What Constitutes Evidence? . 13 

II Dreams 21 

III Clairvoyance or Telepathy? . 41 

IV OUT-OF-THE-BODY EXPERIENCES . . 67 

V Visions of the Dead 78 

VI "Meeting" Cases 136 

VII Metetherl\l Imprints .... 143 

VIII Communication by Motor Response 154 

IX A Perhaps Incredible Story . . 167 

X Mystical Experiences .... 177 

Index 197 



r ■ 



MAN IS A SPIRIT 



"What philosopher has not at one time or another 
cut the queerest figure imaginable, between the affirma- 
tions of a reasonable and firmly convinced eye-witness, 
and the inner resistance of insurmountable doubt? Shall 
he wholly deny the truth of all the apparitions they tell 
about? What reasons can he quote to disprove them? 

"Shall he, on the other hand, admit even one of 
these stories? How important would be such an avowal, 
and what astonishing consequences we should see before 
us, if we could suppose even one such occurrence to be 
proved! A third way out, perhaps, is possible, namely, 
not to trouble one's self with such impertinent or idle 
questions, and to hold on to the useful. But because this 
plan is reasonable, therefore profound scholars have at 
all times, by a majority of votes, rejected it ! 

"Since it is just as much a silly prejudice to believe 
without reason nothing of the many things that are told 
with an appearance of truth, as to believe without exam- 
ination everything that common report says, the author 
of this book has been led away partly by the latter pre- 
judice, in trying to escape the former. " * 

"The same ignorance" [how an immaterial nature can 
be in an immaterial body, etc.] "makes me so bold as 
absolutely to deny the truth of the various ghost stories, 
and yet with the common, although queer, reservation 
that while I doubt any one of them, still I have a certain 
faith in the whole of them taken together. " 2 

iKant: '^Dreams of a Spirit-Seer," preface; p. 88 of English trans- 
lation of 1900. 
2 Ibid., p. 88. 



MAN IS A SPIRIT 

CHAPTER I 

WHAT CONSTITUTES EVIDENCE? 

IN the autumn of 1915, when the casualty lists 
were terribly lengthening, the Editor of the 
International Psychic Gazette asked a number 
of eminent men to send, if possible, "messages of 
comfort to the bereaved" for publication. Many 
helpful replies were received from men who, on 
one ground or another, believed in the survival 
of personality past death ; but the most striking, 
to me, was the response of Mr. Edward Clodd. 
He said: "As the evidence that we possess seems 
to me conclusive against survival after death, I 
can say nothing on the lines which you sug- 
gest." (October issue of the Gazette, p. 6.) We 
can hardly doubt that it must give pain to any- 
one to make a statement like that, for it would 
strike a chill to the heart of any mourner; and 

13 



14 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

it is permissible to suppose that Mr. Clodd 
regretted his negative convictions. I wish to 
suggest that it is not necessary to hold them; 
that they are the result, not of evidence 
against, but of non-acquaintance with evidence 
for, or of materialistic prejudice. Hume said 
that miracles were contrary to experience; 
but he meant only that they were contrary to 
his own and that of those whose testimony he 
believed; which proves nothing, for there are 
others. 

The evidence, we are told, seems conclusive 
against survival. The obvious question at once 
arises: "What evidence?" Mr. Clodd gives 
none. And indeed for a very good reason; 
namely, that there is none to give. There can be 
no evidence that there is no such thing as a white 
crow; even if there is no record of anybody see- 
ing one, this furnishes ground for a provisional 
judgment only, for at any moment a white crow 
may turn up. And in the matter of survival, 
there are a few millions of people in the world 
who have seen their white crow. Mrs. Piper 
was Professor James's. * One piece of positive 

^'The Will to Believe," p. 319; Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. xxiii., 
pp. 35-6, 106, 120-1. Cf. "Memories and Studies," pp. 188, 198, 
200. 



WHAT CONSTITUTES EVIDENCE? 15 

evidence shatters a negative presumption. One 
white crow disproves the proposition that all 
crows are black. One piece of spiritualistic evi- 
dence suffices at least to throw doubt on the nega- 
tive presumption against survival. This pre- 
sumption is based on ignorance or prejudice, 
not on knowledge ; as with a cleric known to me 
who "could see no evidence for evolution. ,, He 
did not want to see it. The ostrich was supposed 
to persuade itself that it had no pursuers by- 
hiding its head in the sand. The existence of 
white crows can be disposed of if we decline 
to look at them. Spiritistic evidence can be ig- 
nored, as indeed it generally is. "It is mag- 
nificent, but it is not war," said the French Gen- 
eral, watching the charge at Balaclava: the au- 
dacity of ignoring psychical evidence is similarly 
magnificent, but it is not science. It is not even 
fair-minded common sense. We cheerfully ad- 
mit that it is possible to advance several differ- 
ent and more or less reasonable hypotheses in 
explanation of the phenomena, without invok- 
ing spirits ; but the existence and significance of 
these phenomena can hardly be ignored much 
longer. There is room for differing interpreta- 
tions, but it will soon have to be recognized that 



16 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

there is something there to be interpreted. The 
negative dogmatizer is approaching extinction. 
Mr. Clodd belongs with von Helmholtz, whose 
words we now read with amusement. He once 
said to Sir William Barrett that ' 'neither the 
testimony of all the Fellows of the Royal So- 
ciety nor the evidence of his own senses would 
lead him to believe even in thought-transference, 
as it was impossible." * The experts were once 
equally sure that it was impossible for trains to 
run at the appalling speed of thirty miles an 
hour. And I am pretty sure that my grand- 
father would never have believed in wireless 
telegraphy. 

But, putting aside mere ignorant prejudice, 
we may well ask why psychical evidence, though 
now obtaining serious recognition, is still looked 
on with some distrust and doubt; and I think- 
there is a reasonable explanation and a reason- 
able cause of this. A large amount of evidence, 
particularly in recent publications, has been ob- 
tained through mediums, sometimes paid ones; 
and there is a natural tendency to regard such 
people as rogues until they are proved honest, 

a Sir W. F. Barrett: "On the Threshold of a New World of 
Thought," p. 17. 



WHAT CONSTITUTES EVIDENCE? 17 

and even afterwards. I sympathize with this, 
though it is mistaken in its over-cautiousness. 
Palmists and fortune-tellers are mostly or en- 
tirely frauds; but such people are not mediums. 
Of this latter class I believe the majority to be 
perfectly honest, though there is much self-de- 
lusion and erratic faculty. But it is certainly 
very desirable that evidence of this character 
should be supplemented by other evidence which 
is above all suspicion of dishonesty. Of course 
many of us are acquainted with private sensitives 
or mediums through whom is often obtained evi- 
dence even stronger than the best given by pro- 
fessionals; but it is usually private matter, and 
the sensitive, moreover, is under no obligation 
to take the world into his or her confidence. Mr. 
Clodd's ignorance of the existence of such per- 
sons is shown in a letter of his, dated December 
31, 1916, to the Yorkshire Post: "I am tempted 
to ask whether communications from the departed 
are to be had only by payments to professional 
mediums." Evidently he doesn't know, and the 
tone of the letter suggests that he considers his 
question a knock-out — which is rather amusing 
to those who do know. It is unfortunate that 
Mr. Clodd, by the vigorous "rationalist" writ- 



18 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

ings which so plainly show his prejudice, should 
close up the channels through which informa- 
tion might come to him. People naturally will 
not tell him things which they know would be 
received with derision instead of scientific and 
open-minded consideration. 

But apart from private mediums who get com- 
munications more or less regularly, there are 
many individuals who enjoy evidential but only 
occasional enlargements of perceptivity. From 
time to time during the last twelve years I have 
received from such persons accounts of spon- 
taneous psychical experiences of many kinds, 
from dreams which only just touch the fringe 
of the supernormal up to full-blown apparitions 
seen by several people. Further, I have had 
the opportunity of studying other accounts of 
a similar kind which have been sent to friends 
of mine. In particular I have to thank Sir Oliver 
Lodge for his kind permission to use material 
which has been sent to him. I need hardly say 
that in all cases I have received the senders' 
permission to print, but all names and places 
are disguised, lest the narrators' reputation for 
sanity should suffer; for it is extremely unwise, 
if we regard the opinion of the man in the street 



WHAT CONSTITUTES EVIDENCE? 19 

at all — and few of us can afford to disregard it 
entirely, — to let it be known that we have ex- 
perienced anything approaching a hallucination. 
These accounts do not come up to what I con- 
ceive to be the evidential standard of the Society 
for Psychical Research, or I should have sent 
them there. But, though falling below the stand- 
ard which the S.P.R. rightly keeps high, these 
cases seem to me good enough to print. In many 
of them the weakness of the evidence is due to 
accident or an unfortunate set of circumstances, 
as when important corroborative testimony is 
obtainable only from someone who is hostile to 
the subject and will not testify, or is away at the 
war and cannot be got at, or who has died. But 
a continued correspondence or, better, personal 
interviews which in some cases I have had, is 
often enough to give almost as much confidence 
in the narrator's reliability as would corrobora- 
tive testimony by another person; and I have 
included no case without having been convinced 
by either such correspondence or interviews that 
the narrator is a person of sanity and integrity, 
whose word we should accept without hesitation 
in more ordinary matters. I do not expect read- 
ers to attach as much importance to the narra- 



2o MAN IS A SPIRIT 

tives as I do, for I cannot give all the data which 
go to make up my estimate in each case; I can 
only hope that they will be read with a sort of 
provisional acceptance of them as perhaps at 
least partly true. 

Before or after each case I indicate my own 
attitude to the various possible explanations of 
it, but this is only tentative, and readers may 
skip my comments if they wish. 



CHAPTER II 

DREAMS 

IT may be urged, quite legitimately, that some 
of these dream-coincidences now to be related 
may happen by accident. Out of the immense 
number of our dreams it is to be expected that 
some of them will represent some real fact not 
normally known to the dreamer, without any 
supernormal agency being concerned. The 
dreams which miss — it may be contended — are 
forgotten; those that hit are remembered, and 
consequently count for more than they ought. 
The point is obvious, and in various ways its logic 
has been recognized from antiquity. Cicero 
quotes, for instance, the remark of Diagoras the 
Atheist, when shown the votive tablets in the 
temple of Samothrace, placed there by those 
shipwrecked mariners who had been saved from 
drowning. He was bidden to note how many 
had been saved by the power of the gods. "Yea," 

said he, "but where are those commemorated 

21 



22 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

who were drowned?" Like dreams which miss, 
there is no record of them. 

But, even after giving due weight to this ob- 
jection, all careful investigators are agreed that 
a chance explanation of all veridical (truth-tell- 
ing) dreams is quite unacceptable. It sounds 
plausible in general, but it breaks down on ex- 
amination. Most dreams are mere medleys, 
without any predicative or supernormal claim. 
Often they are absurd re-presentations of mem- 
ory, as when Ben Jonson saw the Carthaginians 
and Romans fighting for a whole night on his 
great toe — a restricted battle-ground, Jonson's 
great size notwithstanding. We may ignore this 
kind, devoting our attention to those dreams that 
definitely state a fact not normally known or be- 
lieved. And there is often a peculiarly vivid 
quality about supernormal dreams, differentiat- 
ing them sharply from the vague romancings 
which are the ordinary product of our sleep men- 
tation; a vividness and reality which lead the 
dreamer to write down an account, or to tell 
someone about the experience, before any verifi- 
cation comes. This feeling of reality often gives 
complete certitude that the dream has brought 
truth and that it is a unique or almost unique 
experience; for few people have many of them 



DREAMS 23 

in a whole lifetime. This instinctive differentia- 
tion between the true and the "ordinary' ' dream 
seems akin to the instinctive power, which a gen- 
uine clairvoyant usually has, of distinguishing 
between the work of his own imagination and 
messages really coming supernormally. And 
whether the verdical dreams are few in any one 
person's experience or are fairly frequent, as 
with the percipient whose account I quote first, 
it is a fact that in many cases the correspondence 
between the dream details and the actual facts is 
too close to be reasonably attributable to chance. 
But it is very important, in view of the untrust- 
worthiness of memory, that people who have 
these experiences should record them and place 
the record in some other hands before verifi- 
cation. It is mainly through lack of this pre- 
caution that my cases are not up to the eviden- 
tial standard of the Society for Psychical Re- 
search, and have, therefore (as I have said), 
to be presented in my own more irresponsible 
pages. 

"I venture to offer you a brief account of 
several psychic or telepathic experiences, one of 
my father, and the others of my own. 



24 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

"I have frequent premonitions in dreams, but 
these which I relate are the most striking. I am 
a healthy, normal woman, of cheerful disposition, 
and have never dabbled in things psychic, but 
feel that if I once relinquished self-control I 
would be quite carried away. 



"My father was a North of Ireland man of 
Scottish ancestry, totally devoid of superstition, 
and a rock of common sense. He was in charge 
of a large police district in Central Queensland 
many years ago, when he was thrown from his 
horse and received serious internal injuries. 
From these he made a partial recovery and was 
granted a lengthy term of leave of absence. He 
was strongly advised to go to Sydney and con- 
sult a famous doctor there. This, however, was 
not an easy matter for him to undertake, as in 
his weak state he could not travel alone, and 
my mother had five tiny children, one only a 
few weeks old, so could not accompany him. 

"He was very worried, trying to plan for 
the best, and also for financial reasons. One 
night he woke my mother and told her that he 
had just seen his father, who had been dead for 



DREAMS 25 

twenty years, and that he had said: 'Don't go 
to Sydney, George, for you will be dead before 
November.' This was early in July, and he died 
on September 8th following. My grandfather 
had been a medical student, but gave up his 
studies and entered the Army. 

II 

"I was once staying at the seaside and oc- 
cupied the same bed as a girl friend on New 
Year's Eve. She woke me to ask why I was 
crying so bitterly. I told her that I dreamt I 
saw my brother Charles lying senseless on a 
rough bush track and a dead horse lying near 
him. Later she again woke me to ask the same 
question. I then told her that I dreamt I had 
received a newspaper by post and that my former 
dream appeared in it in a conspicuous paragraph, 
and that, on looking at the date of the paper, 
I found it was a month old. 

"Next day my brother George came to see 
me, and on relating the experiences of the pre- 
vious night he warned me to say nothing about 
it to my mother. After returning home I re- 
ceived a letter from Charles telling me that, just 
a month ago, on New Year's Eve, he had a 
bad accident. He and a friend were spending 



26 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

the Christmas holidays on a cattle station when 
their horses got out of the stockyard and got 
away with some wild horses up a mountain. In 
galloping after them his horse fell and broke 
its neck, and he was found insensible, just at 
the time I dreamt it, and exactly the same length 
of time elasped before I was told of it as oc- 
curred in the dream. 

Ill 

"On another occasion I dreamt that an old 
friend who was in England with her husband 
would return a widow. This was verified within 
twelve months. 

IV 

"A very old friend, one hundred miles away, 
had an apoplectic seizure. We were all deeply 
attached to the old gentleman, and just at dusk 
I became very restless and anxious to know his 
condition. Sitting quietly in the gloom and 
thinking deeply of him, I felt everything seem 
to slip away from me. Presently the stars at 
which I was gazing became blotted out by a thin 
mist which rapidly became thicker and darker 
and began to take a rough human form. I came 
suddenly to myself with a feeling of terror and 



DREAMS 27 

rushed into the house. Soon after came word 
that he had passed away." 

K. B. Els worth. 

We cannot lay much stress on the premoni- 
tory dream regarding Mrs. Elsworth's father's 
death, for various reasons. One is that a dream 
of that kind may act as a suggestion and may 
bring about its own fulfilment, if the person ac- 
cepts it. Another reason is that our subcon- 
sciousness almost certainly knows more about 
the state of our health than our normal conscious- 
ness does, and consequently a premonitory dream 
of death may be due to subconscious inference 
from the known state of an organ. But, this 
notwithstanding, the form of the dream is rather 
significant. It was the dreamer's deceased fa- 
ther who gave the warning. Now I have had a 
good deal of evidence — of which some is given in 
my book "Psychical Investigations" — to show 
that relatives and friends come to meet dying 
people; and the form of this dream, therefore, 
fits in with what I have learnt by other methods. 
Consequently, while not regarding the dream as 
evidentially strong, its internal structure disposes 
me to look favourably on the face-value expla- 
nation. 



28 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

In dream number two the brother seems to 
have informed his sister of his accident telepathi- 
cally. He was insensible at the time, and there 
is reason to believe that such a state favours the 
production of telepathic phenomena, the spirit 
being partly liberated. And his sister, being 
asleep, was in a state specially good for recep- 
tion. The predictive element introduces a more 
difficult question regarding the metaphysics of 
Time; but perhaps this part was just an acci- 
dental shot of the dreamer's subconsciousness, as 
dream number three may have been. The fourth 
experience, which cannot with certainty be called 
a dream, seems to have been an incipient phan- 
tasm of the dead, the freed spirit manifesting its 
presence to his friend. 

Returning to the meeting idea, friends and 
relatives not only meet, but also stay with their 
loved ones a while after the crossing, helping to 
nurse them into consciousness on the higher 
plane; for there is reason to believe that we are 
born into the other life in a rather helpless state, 
somewhat as we are born into this; or that, at 
any rate, we need more or less attention, though 
usually only for a short time. My next case illus- 
trates this idea. The father saw his daughter's 



DREAMS 29 

grief, found the man who had been killed — had 
perhaps been with him from death — and could 
link them up again in his daughter's sleep when 
her spirit was partially free from the prison of 
the body. 

" I lost a very dear friend at Neuve Chapelle. 
In my great distress I prayed that I might see 
where he was; and that night I dreamed that I 
saw him, in a kind of hospital, looking very ill 
and tired, like one recovering from an illness. 
But what to me is the strange thing is that my 
father, who died nine years ago, was with me 
and took me into this room to see my friend. Now 
I had not been thinking of my father at all. I 
was entirely absorbed in the great grief I felt on 
learning that my best friend had been killed. 
Do you think all this was just an ordinary dream? 
It seems far more to me." 

Kathleen Connor. 

The next case is long and curiously sequent. 
It was published in the Occult Review for Feb- 
ruary, 1917, and I have to thank the editor and 
publishers for permission to reprint. Mrs. 
Guthrie is a lady of position and education, and 
I regard her testimony as good and credible in 
any ordinary matter. Her psychic sensitiveness 



30 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

seems to have now nearly gone, for she has had 
no more experiences of the kind. 

4 'In February, 1914, 1 became acquainted with 
a Captain Stuart, an Army man who had been 
through the Boer War. We saw little of each 
other, but each felt almost at once a strong sense 
of kinship and friendliness. As a matter of fact 
— though this may not be the cause — there is a 
very slight relationship, through a common an- 
cestor several generations back. In July, 1914, 
before I had any idea of the European war-cloud 
which was soon to burst, I was presiding at a 
tea in camp, not far from my home. It was a 
bright, sunny day, and everybody was in high 
spirits except myself. I found myself inexplica- 
bly depressed. The thought, 'Oh, the pity of it, 
the pity of it!' filled my mind without any rea- 
son. Captain Stuart was there, but I did not 
specially associate my feelings with him or any- 
one else. I went home to bed and wept miser- 
ably without knowing why. 

"In July, 1915, Captain Stuart's battalion 
sailed for Gallipoli. We corresponded regularly, 
and I sent him parcels. I felt no special appre- 
hension. On the night of December 9th, 1915, 
I went to bed at 10 p.m., but could not sleep for 
some time. When I did, I had a horrid dream 



DREAMS 31 

of muddy water and awoke in great discomfort 
and uneasiness. The room was in absolute dark- 
ness, the blinds down, and heavy curtains across 
the window. But presently I was surprised to 
see a big, bright light on the wall opposite my 
bed and moving very rapidly. It then disap- 
peared, reappearing on the next wall, then on 
the wardrobe by my bed. I was frightened, 
and screamed for my friend next door. She 
was in almost instantly, white and trembling, 
and saying, 'The Light! the Light! What is 
it?' For she had seen the same light in her 
room also, on the door of communication. The 
blinds were down, and heavy curtains drawn, in 
both rooms; moreover, we were on the third 
floor, and no explanation by a light outside was 
possible. We spent the remainder of the night 
together. 

"Four days later, on December 13th, came 
the news that Captain Stuart was wounded, but 
no details. And, since he was on the Staff, we 
hoped it was nothing serious. The absence of 
'dangerously' or 'seriously' was reassuring. 

"That night, Monday, December 13th, 1915, 
I dreamt that Captain Stuart was standing by 
my bedside. I saw him as plainly as I see the 
writing I am doing at this moment. His uni- 



32 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

form looked very worn, and he had grey hairs 
in the black. His face looked wan, worried, 
harassed, troubled, lined, and he was very thin 
in the body, and his uniform was splashed. One 
hand was on my counterpane, the other was 
pointing to Heaven, and he was singing 'Jesus, 
Lover of my Soul.' Then I awoke. When my 
maid came in, the first thing in the morning, I 
said I felt sure that Captain Stuart had gone 
West, and told her my dream. The letters came 
in, and there was one from a relative of his say- 
ing that a wire had been received from the War 
Office announcing his death. He had been 
wounded on December 6th and died on Decem- 
ber 9th. I went over to see the relative, and 
mentioned my dream and the hymn, asking if 
it was a favourite of his. She said she had never 
heard so. 

"About a month after — during which time I 
constantly saw the light, only now always there 
was a second light close behind it — this relative 
wired for me over, and I went. On going into 
the room she greeted me with unusual gravity, 
saying immediately afterwards: 'What was the 
hymn you say Colin sang that night you saw 
him?' ' Jesus, Lover of my Soul,' I replied. 
She then gave me a letter which had arrived that 



DREAMS 33 

morning from one of the senior Staff officers 
giving the details. Captain Stuart was rendered 
unconscious by a shell-wound on December 6th, 
and died at 2 a.m., December 9th, without re- 
covering consciousness. He was buried, wrapped 
in the Union Jack, at 4.45 a.m., with full military 
honours; and the hymn sung was 'Jesus, Lover 
of my Soul.' 

"I had never discussed religion or hymns 
with him. And I had never dreamt of him 
before. 

"Some time afterwards I either had a dream 
or a vision — I don't know which — of my friend 
standing by my bedside. One hand had hold of 
one of my wrists, and he was urging me to go 
with him. He was in khaki, but it looked brighter 
and more cared for. I gave a cry, and woke 
or came to, to hear someone moving round the 
room to the door, which I distinctly heard open; 
footsteps (a man's, with jack boots and spurs 
clanking) going downstairs; the front door open 
and shut; and the clock struck five. 

"Very early the next morning my friend came 
into my room very upset, and asked me if I had 
seen the light. I said 'No'; and she said that 
something had wakened her, and she had seen 
a large light on the communication door between 



34 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

our rooms, though the room was in pitch dark- 
ness; then it moved along the wall towards the 
door; as it did so she heard something moving 
in my room, then heard my door open, footsteps 
as of a man in jack boots with spurs clanking 
downstairs, the front door open and shut; and 
the clock struck five. 

"A few weeks later I was at my mother's, 
where Captain Stuart had never been. My maid 
slept with me. She had never seen Captain 
Stuart. On the third night, January 7th, 1916, 
I dreamt that he had come into my room and 
was bending over me with a smile and looking 
awfully well; and he seemed to want me to go 
with him. Then a shriek woke me or brought 
me to, and I heard my maid crying: 'The man, 
the man! No, no; you must not goP It took 
me a long time to pacify her. She then told me 
that she had been awakened by hearing the door 
open, and, to her astonishment, in came a man 
in khaki. The extraordinary thing is that though 
the room was in absolute darkness she saw every- 
thing quite as plainly as if it had been broad day- 
light. The man, who she saw was an officer, eame 
to her side of the bed and looked down at her. 
She stared up at him, too astonished to be fright- 
ened just then. When he saw her he looked an- 



DREAMS 35 

gry and turned on his heel to go round to my 
side of the bed, and she saw that when he leant 
over me a change came over his face, the angry 
look giving place to a smile. She thinks I then 
said, 'Coming!' Then she suddenly realized 
that there was something strange, and screamed 
(and she did scream) . Then I woke or came to. 
Some days afterwards I showed her a photo of 
Captain Stuart. She recognized it without 
hesitation as being the man she had seen that 
night. 

"I never saw the light or lights again. 
"My next and (up to now) last experience 
was on the night of September 14th, 1916. Be- 
fore going to sleep I had been thinking of Cap- 
tain Stuart and wondering if it were possible 
to see him. The next thing I found myself 
in a narrow, lofty, whitewashed walled passage, 
with slate tiles, all beautifully clean as if just 
washed. At one end was a door, slightly ajar, 
evidently of some occupied room, for I could 
hear movement, voices, and laughter occasion- 
ally. 

"Suddenly, in front of me, just across the 
passage, appeared an elderly woman whom I had 
never seen before, short, full figure, dress as of 
very bygone times such as I had never seen but 



36 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

had heard of: the real old garibaldi fastened in 
to the big waist with a patent leather belt, and 
the garibaldi blouse and skirt were in pepper- 
and-salt colour. She had a white turned-down 
collar on, black hair parted down the middle and 
done up in an old-fashioned chignon, complexion 
pasty to yellowish, good-shape nose, bright black 
eyes. She spoke. 'Captain Colin Stuart is pass- 
ing by and wishes to see you,' she said ; and im- 
mediately a thousand voices seemed to echo her. 
I was frightened and did not speak. 'Are you 
ready to see Captain Colin Stuart when he passes 
by?' she asked; and a thousand voices echoed 
again. I could not speak, and she gave me a 
very serious look, saying, 'You must not keep 
him waiting when he passes'; and the thousand 
voices echoed this, too. Then she vanished, and 
there was silence, and I waited in fright as to 
whether I should see him as an awful appa- 
rition. 

"I had not much time for fear, for from that 
room, where I had heard voices and laughter, 
there appeared Colin. I heard his footsteps, and 
in a moment he was beside me, and he gave a jolly 
laugh. Sacred and serious as this subject is to 
me, I cannot describe that laugh as anything 
but jolly. And, taking hold of my hand in one 



DREAMS 37 

of his — I saw the other was occupied — he led 
me down the passage and into a small, beauti- 
fully clean, three-cornered room with white walls, 
slate-tiled floor, huge old-fashioned fireplace, but 
no fire or furniture. It was cool, but not un- 
pleasantly so. It was the room next to the one 
he had come out of. We only went just inside 
the door. Colin twisted me round in front of 
him so that I could see him well, and let go of 
my hand. It was then I saw that he carried a 
suitcase and travelling-rug in his occupied hand, 
which he never let go of once. He was in what 
I should call a lounge- or smoking-suit, beauti- 
fully cut and tailored, of Copenhagen blue, shirt 
cuffs and collar beautifully white; and as for 
Colin himself, he looked just splendid. He car- 
ried his head up, proudly and grandly, his hair 
was beautifully cut and trimmed, also his mous- 
tache. And his face! He had no lines, and 
there was no sign on that face of either care or 
fatigue, or worry, or pain, or as if he had ever 
known anything evil or trouble of any kind. He 
looked just as if he had had the most perfect long 
rest possible, and had had a splendid bathe. I 
was so delighted (no word had thus far been 
spoken between us) that I clapped my hands! 



38 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

r 

And I came to, with the sound of that happy- 
laugh in my ears. 

"I have given you my experiences, which have 
all come quite spontaneously. I have been to no 
seances or mediums. They may or may not be 
of interest to you, but to me they have been a 
great comfort. I am firmly of opinion that my 
friend is doing useful work on the other side and 
is all right. I do not believe in death, and have 
a great horror of the word for what it has been 
made to imply. I pray for my friend in the pres- 
ent tense. 

"On each occasion when I have come to, there 
has been a feeling of intense fatigue which was 
unaccountable on any physical grounds, for I 
lead a placid and restful life, and besides, it is not 
like fatigue after walking or dancing. It is 
not only bodily fatigue, but the nerves feel 
done, absolutely tired and worn out. I had 
the same feeling when my father and brother 
died." 

Some of the foregoing, admittedly, is not "evi- 
dential" in the strictest sense. There is nothing 
surprising in anyone dreaming that a friend is 
dead when he is known to be wounded, or in 
dreaming that he is going away. But, on the 
other hand, there are points which are strongly 



DREAMS 39 

evidential, i.e., which suggest the co-operation 
of some mind external to that of the dreamer. 
The light, seen by both Mrs. Guthrie and her 
friend, appeared for the first time on the night 
of December 9th. And, as it turned out, it was 
on that day, December 9th, at 2 a.m., — twelve 
hours before the dream, etc., allowing for differ- 
ence in time — that Captain Stuart died, though 
Mrs. Guthrie did not then know that he was even 
wounded. 

And as to the next incident, Mrs. Guthrie 
had no normal knowledge on which inferences 
could be based, for she had never talked with 
him about hymns. The almost unavoidable ex- 
planation is either telepathy from some soldier 
present at the funeral, or the actual operation 
of the mind of Captain Stuart himself. 1 On this 
latter hypothesis he must have been consciously 
present at his own funeral, listening to the hymn 
sung. And there is nothing incredible about 
that. I know of various incidents which suggest 
that this often happens, and the Japanese seem 
to believe something of the sort. Apparently 
Captain Stuart came and sang it before the news 

1 And the telepathic theory is rendered unlikely by the fact that 
there is little or no good evidence for the "telepathing" of some- 
one else's apparition. 



4o MAN IS A SPIRIT 

could arrive normally, as a test message proving 
his real presence. 

Then there is the queer fact of the maid hav- 
ing a waking vision which corroborated Mrs. 
Guthrie's contemporaneous dream — if it was a 
dream, for her state on these occasions does not 
seem to have been quite like ordinary sleep. 
There was no spoken "suggestion" from one to 
the other ; each spontaneously perceived the same 
thing at the same time. I have obtained the 
maid's signed account, corroborating. 

Further, there is the continuity and the steady 
improvement in the spirit's condition. This to 
me is significant. Mrs. Guthrie has no knowl- 
edge of spiritualism or mediums, but her experi- 
ence is in line with what I have learnt in my own 
investigations. After passing over, there is usu- 
ally no sudden transition to supernal realms of 
glory; no transmutation of man into seraph or 
even ordinary angel. No; he remains himself, 
and for some little time he remains very much 
in the state of mind last experienced; exempli- 
fied by Captain Stuart's splashed and worn 
khaki and wan and troubled look when first seen, 
four days after his death. Soon, with rest and 
attention and care, the spirit gets over the shock 
and pain incidental to its last hours in the body, 



DREAMS 41 

attaining gradually a state of fine and perfect 
well-ness. It will be noted how Captain Stuart, 
in his appearances, looked first "brighter and 
more cared for," and finally on September 14 
was evidently in the most splendid form and 
ready for work and progress, as symbolized by 
suitcase and travelling rug, and by his jolly 
laugh. It is all in line with knowledge gleaned 
through other sources, and it is helpful to get 
this corroboration through a private person who 
knows nothing of the traditions or conventions 
of the subject. It may be said here that Mrs. 
Guthrie is, as she has said to me herself, "a Celt 
of the Celts," as is also Captain Stuart. Per- 
haps this has something to do with the experi- 
ences, for the temperament which we call Celtic 
certainly seems more open to psychical experi- 
ences than the stodgy Anglo-Saxon build, which 
happens to be my own. 

Mrs. Guthrie also seems to have power of the 
"physical-phenomena" kind. I quote the fol- 
lowing from a later letter of hers. After men- 
tioning a desk in which are some of Captain 
Stuart's letters, she says: 

". . . the last letter he ever wrote me, which 



42 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

was on the day of his wounding — December 6, — 
will never stay in the pocket with the other let- 
ters, and on one occasion when I went to this 
desk during this summer I had a shock, for not 
only was the letter out of the pocket where I had 
put it, but the envelope was in one corner 
with the two sheets placed very tidily just be- 
low it, and two little notebooks, which had 
never been taken out of their different pockets 
in the desk, were at the other corner on the 
pad, very tidily packed on top of each other. 
The desk is kept locked, and I have the only 
key. 

"Captain Stuart was very precise and tidy. 
This last letter, which reached me a month after 
his death, was different from any he had writ- 
ten me before. He was ordinarily very particu- 
lar and courteous; this letter was cheery and 
flippant. . . . Did I tell you that about a month 
ago the room in which he slept during his one 
and only visit here is now a sitting-room, and one 
night just before we all went to bed (the others 
were tidying up the room, the door of which, op- 
posite the fireplace at which I stood, was open) 
my attention was attracted — why, I don't know 
— to the door? First I saw a kind of nebulous 



DREAMS 43 

grey cloud which revolved into the half of my 
friend, and he was wearing the suit in which he 
came to us in July, 1914. I saw him only for a 
moment, and the others saw nothing. 

''Some six weeks after my last dream of Cap- 
tain Stuart I had a dream of my father, of whom 
I had previously only dreamt in the vaguest 
way, as it was ten years ago when he passed, a 
broken old man; but when I saw him in this 
dream he looked glorious, like Captain Stuart — 
so fresh, bright, clean, no trace of sorrow or 
suffering, beautifully dressed and groomed. 
And he also carried a suitcase — an extraordinary 
coincidence. He was coming out of a passage 
exactly like the one I had been in with Captain 
Stuart. Papa was coming out, and I was wait- 
ing at the entrance with a lot of women and chil- 
dren. We were on a beautiful rich plateau with 
herds of sheep, oxen, and goats, and the women 
and children were dressed in flowing white robes ; 
one woman had a crook, and there was a child 
with very golden curls. Suddenly someone said, 
'He's coming!' and out of the passage came my 
father. He looked splendid, glorious; they 
crowded round him, he greeted some of them, and 
then said: 'Where's Flora?' 'Here!' they an- 



44 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

swered, and I was pushed forward. Papa kissed 
me, then held me back from him, and said: 'You 
have done a splendid work, Flora.' He drew 
me to him, kissed me again very tenderly, gave a 
happy laugh, and I awoke." 



CHAPTER III 

CLAIRVOYANCE OR TELEPATHY? 



THE word clairvoyance has been used at 
times for almost any kind of supernormal 
perception, and it is usual to designate as "normal 
clairvoyance" the descriptions and names and mes- 
sages given by a medium not in trance, though 
some of these are almost certainly telepathy from 
the dead. This kind of thing Mr. Myers well 
called "transcendental vision, or the perception 
of beings regarded as on another plane of ex- 
istence" ; l though when there are veridical mes- 
sages, indicating initiative on the other side, the 
total process evidently goes beyond "percep- 
tion" on this. Our prejudices against survival, 
however, ingrained by a century of materialistic 
science, make us hesitate to invoke telepathy 
from the other side, and we are willing to give 
much credit to "clairvoyance," in the limited 

1 "Human Personality," i., p. xvj 
45 



46 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

sense of vision of the past or distant. On the 
other hand, this power of sensing without the nor- 
mal sense-organs is so extraordinary that when it 
is a case of earthly clairvoyance — supernormal 
perception of something happening at a distance 
— we tend to fall back on telepathy, which wire- 
less telegraphy has made easy to believe in, 
though the analogy is deceptive. And, obviously, 
things occurring at a distance are usually per- 
ceived by, or known to, someone, and this some- 
one may have influenced the clairvoyance. As 
Myers pithily says: "Telsesthesia merges into 
telepathy, since we cannot say how far the per- 
ception of a distant scene may in essential be 
the perception of the content of a distant 
mind'' 

The following case is an illustration of this: 

"Strange Story in connection with a Railway 
Disaster. 

"In the month of June in the year 1909 (the 
date of the month I forget, but it was a glorious- 
ly bright Saturday afternoon), accompanied by 
my wife, I caught the 2.30 p.m. New Westmin- 
ster to Vancouver car, boarding it on 8th Ave- 
nue at about 2.45 p.m., as the car was not on time, 



CLAIRVOYANCE OR TELEPATHY 47 

being about five minutes late. I wish to call 
particular attention to the time, as it has an im- 
portant bearing on subsequent events. We could 
not have been seated more than ten minutes, 
for the car had not reached Central Park, when 
my wife exclaimed : 'Look ! A train has plunged 
through Fraser River Bridge! What bridge is 
that?' — calling my attention to headlines in a 
newspaper, a copy of the Vancouver World, 
which a passenger occupying the seat in front 
of us was reading. In large black type running 
across two columns I read distinctly the follow- 
ing: 

'ANOTHER TRAIN WRECK ON THE GREAT 

NORTHERN. 

ENGINE PLUNGES THROUGH 

FRASER RIVER BRIDGE.' 

"Further details in smaller type followed, but 
before I could read them the man turned the 
paper over, and at the time we noticed that he 
did not appear to be interested in this part of 
the paper. There had been two accidents on 
this line in this vicinity only a few months pre- 
viously, in one of which a number of Japanese 
had lost their lives, near Sapperton, so that an- 



48 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

other mishap was somewhat startling; but, as 
I remarked, it was strange that I had heard noth- 
ing of this affair on the Fraser Bridge, as I had 
been at the Schaake Machine Works on Front 
Street all that morning, and anything so serious 
as this would have been the talk of the place; 
on the other hand, if it had occurred after noon, 
how could it have got into print in a Vancouver 
paper in time to reach New Westminster by 2.30 
p.m.? After discussing the matter for several 
minutes, we concluded there was a big mistake 
somehow, and that if there had been a wreck 
on the Great Northern Railway it certainly could 
not have been on this Fraser River Bridge; so 
we dismissed the subject from our minds for the 
time being, and, after spending a pleasant after- 
noon in Stanley Park, returned to New West- 
minster early in the evening. Immediately on 
arrival at home, however, we were informed that 
there had been an accident on the Great Northern 
Railway that afternoon, the locomotive jumping 
the metals at the junction of the Y on the Fraser 
River Bridge when approaching New Westmin- 
ster Station, and, plunging into the space be- 
tween the two tracks, had disappeared into the 
river below, carrying with it the engineer and fire- 



CLAIRVOYANCE OR TELEPATHY 49 

man, both of whom perished. Fortunately the 
couplings had broken, and the rest of the train 
was brought to a standstill in time to avert a 
worse catastrophe. Our youngest daughter, who 
had been on the river that afternoon, and had 
brought the news home, was much surprised that 
we had seen the report in print so early in the 
day; on the other hand, we contended that the 
accident must have taken place in the morning, 
or at any rate about noon; and it was not till 
the following morning, when, having to visit a 
mill on the Surrey side, I was driving a rig over 
the bridge and was informed by the toll-keeper 
that 2.55 p.m. was the time it happened, that I 
grasped the fact that the news of the accident 
was flashed to us at the time it actually oc- 
curred. 

"As soon as possible I secured copies of the 
Saturday edition of the Vancouver World, but 
could find no report of the matter ; and when the 
news was published in later editions it did not 
take the form in which we saw it. 

"Neither before nor since have I experienced 
any similar incident of this nature — in fact, I 
had been accustomed to ridicule these stories as 
hysterical yarns — but the previous winter I had 
been reading several Theosophical works, much 



50 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

to my wife's disgust, and, Becoming interested 
in some of these weird narratives, and being a 
man of weak faith, I had expressed a strong wish 
to have practical experience of these things be- 
fore I could believe that they were possible. 

"The great outstanding feature of the 
engine plunging through Fraser River Bridge 
could relate to no other accident on the Great 
Northern Railway, and the time we had the 
news in the car must have been between 2.50 
and 3 p.m. On this I have a most unwilling 
witness in my wife; in fact, one of the pecu- 
liarities of the incident is that we both saw it 
word for word alike. 

"Now, what explanation can be offered for 
this remarkable and weird phenomenon? If I 
go to the Theosophists or Spiritualists I shall be 
told that some friendly departed spirit, wishing 
to encourage me in Theosophical or spiritual- 
istic studies, had gratified my wish for prac- 
tical proof of these apparently superhuman 
incidents; an ordinary Christian, if he does 
not doubt my word (which he most probably 
will do), might say that Satan and his angels 
had planned the whole business in order to lead 
me farther astray from the Orthodox Belief; 
but though I have elsewhere had distinct proof 



CLAIRVOYANCE OR TELEPATHY 51 

that even to-day there is apparently a super- 
human force working on this earth which can 
communicate with us, yet is it not possible that 
we may have latent powers or senses not 
thoroughly developed which will enable us to 
have knowledge of events happening many miles 
distant ? 

"I would gladly welcome a satisfactory ex- 
planation to this peculiar business, as I hate 
mysteries and would like to probe this matter 
to the bottom. At present it is a puzzle 
to me." 

M. E. Carter. 

Now, what is the explanation of that? We 
call it clairvoyance, perhaps; but what do we 
mean? As a matter of fact, we cannot tell 
whether the railway accident was subliminally 
perceived and projected hallucinatorily as a 
newspaper announcement, or whether the per- 
cipients became momentarily aware of the con- 
tent of some distant person's mind. It is 
curious that both Mr. and Mrs. Carter saw the 
heading; but perhaps Mr. Carter's vision of it 
was a ricochet from his wife's, who was the 
first percipient, though she was the more 
sceptical of the two about these things. 



52 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

But in ordinary fairness we must admit, 
while holding to clairvoyance or telepathy from 
a distant living mind as the most likely explana- 
tion, that a spiritualistic explanation may be 
the true one. The driver and fireman were 
killed instantly; and, there being some reason 
to suppose that in such cases the released spirit 
is more able and more likely to cause effects in 
the material world than in cases of gradual with- 
drawal by illness, it does not seem improbable 
that one of them communicated the news of 
the disaster to Mrs. Carter's subliminal, which 
then sent up its message as a hallucination ; as 
some people, having forgotten something, can 
see it printed in a crystal in a moment of what 
is perhaps self -induced hypnosis. If human 
beings survive at all, and if telepathy is not 
primarily a physical process, telepathy from the 
dead seems likely to be easier than telepathy 
from the living, for in the former case there 
is freedom from the clog of the body at one 
end at least. So this case may have been 
a projection from the dead. We do not 
know. 

The form of the experience reminds me of 
a dream that I had recently. I have no psychic 
faculty, and should much like to exhibit this 



CLAIRVOYANCE OR TELEPATHY 53 

as my one ewe lamb of psychic performance; 
but I cannot honestly do so, partly because it 
was not exact enough, and partly because, even 
if it had been, the thing was not beyond my 
subliminal's guessing powers. I dreamt that I 
saw a newspaper heading: "Official: Landing 
of 300,000 Troops at Penzance." I reasoned 
seriously as to the troops' nationality, and con- 
cluded that an invasion by Germans at that end 
of England was unlikely, since we hold the 
Channel and the North Sea; and that therefore 
the men were probably the first of the army 
from America. Next morning I read that the 
first American unit had landed at a British port ; 
but there were indications that it was not near 
Penzance, and the numbers seem to have been 
nearer three hundred than three hundred thou- 
sand. But perhaps I did receive some tele- 
pathic impact from somewhere, for a curious 
feature was that my waking self — I regret to 
say — believed Penzance to be inland until I 
looked at a map. But I renounce the case's 
evidentiality, not without regret, but with 
complete finality. 

The next case seems to contain suggestions 
of true clairvoyance or non-telepathic percep- 



54 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

lion of distant places, though the evidential 
quality is not high. 

"I was at a Quakers' meeting one Sunday, 
about fourteen miles away from Bristol, at a 
place called Winscombe, where my old school, 
Sidcot, is situated. I was at work at engineer- 
ing in Bristol at the time, and this particular 
Sunday morning I had gone out cycling. Just 
after the meeting began I was thinking of my 
special friend (Lloyd by name) who worked in 
the same shop as I did. And then I went over 
to Bristol and saw him ! My mind left my body 
and took a journey through space to Bristol. 
I expected him to be out, so had a good hunt 
round the countryside, and found him outside 
Eastville Park with a friend of his. I verified 
the time Monday morning, and found that he 
was at the spot, at the time I came over to 
Bristol, where I had seen him. All the time 
I was there I was conscious, though I do not 
remember the journey either there or back. 
This latter may be easily explained if the speed 
of travel of the mind is of the same order as 
that of light. Then, also — and this is the part 
I wish to emphasize — the impression left on me 
is that I was poised in the air, and that I saw 



CLAIRVOYANCE OR TELEPATHY 55 

not only my friend, but the roads, the fields, 
etc. Indeed, part of the country I then saw 
was new to me, and I have since been able to 
verify in person the correctness of my impres- 
sion of most of it. It is some five or six miles 
away from my home. In fact, it suggests to 
me very forcibly what I should imagine a trip 
in an aeroplane would be like from the point 
of view of observing the country, except that 
my sight would hardly be quite so clear and 
we should travel slower. I have had other 
similar experiences, but only one or two that 
are really as clear as this, and I generally 
assume, unless I have good reason to think 
otherwise, that they are the result of imagina- 
tion. 

"So much with regard to the reception of 
impressions of physical matter. I still have 
something to say with regard to the effect of 
my mind on it. I used to go out cycling some- 
times with my father and mother, and as they 
both had better bicycles than I had, and father 
was heavier than I, they used to freewheel 
faster. I found that I either had to pedal at 
intervals, or lean forward over the handle-bars 
so as to reduce wind resistance, if I wanted to 
keep up with them. I tried using my will to 



56 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

help myself along, and found that if I was in 
a suitable mood I could keep up with them, and 
sometimes go even a little faster, on a slight 
downhill. This practically means to say that, 
translating into ordinary English force-units, 
my will exercised a force of two or three 
pounds' weight pushing me along the road. 
Really I ought to say pushing itself along the 
road, and incidentally me because I was con- 
nected to it. This is enough to tell me that 
the force of my will is a very difficult thing to 
detect, because it is so small in relation to the 
weight of matter to be moved, hence it needs 
a delicate experiment to make it evident. 

"Of course, what I say here must be judged 
by the full facts of the case. I am only young 
(just turned twenty), and these experiments 
have been carried on rather as opportunities oc- 
curred to me than as a set plan of scientific inves- 
tigation. I have always endeavoured to get at 
the truth of these questions, but can regard 
nothing as rigidly proved except that transmis- 
sion of ideas from mind to mind can be as ac- 
curately and completely effected without the use 
of any one of the five senses as connecting links 
as with. 

"My further conclusions with regard to the 



CLAIRVOYANCE OR TELEPATHY 57 

relation of mind to brain I cannot regard as 
proven facts, but only as valuable indications of 
the direction in which the truth will probably lie 
when unearthed by accurate investigations in the 
future." 

Edgar Robinson. 

The supposed application of force by will- 
power is not at all an absurd idea, for some- 
thing of the sort occurs in "physical phe- 
nomena" as described by many investiga- 
tors. If it really occurred in Mr. Robinson's 
case, the source of the energy was no doubt 
his own body, as in the case of Miss 
Goligher (Dr. Crawford's "Reality of Psychic 
Phenomena"), through whose instrumentality 
objects are moved without contact. The 
"how" is not understood, but the fact is estab- 
lished. 

The next case gives an exceptionally good 
series of telepathic experiences between two 
living people, partly in dream and partly by 
waking impressiopi and vision. The young 
man seems to be a remarkable sensitive, for 
he is practically always right; so chance coin- 
cidence is mathematically ruled out. The 



58 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

romantic element in the story is scientifically 
regrettable, if humanly interesting; for we 
tend to suspect lapses from accuracy where 
feeling enters. But the two people are very 
systematic, and documentary proof is being 
preserved. 

"December 27, 1915. 

"■I am taking the liberty of writing you 
(trusting you will not find it an intrusion on 
your time) about some very strange and won- 
derful psychic happenings that have occurred 
to me from time to time. For a long, long 
while — always, I think — this side of life has 
deeply interested me: and I eagerly read your 
books and others on the subject: but so far 
have found nothing in any of the data given 
therein so wonderful as the remarkable experi- 
ences between my most intimate friend and 
myself, and I feel I owe it to you, in your 
great search after the law of these strange 
phenomena, to give you at least some of the 
bare facts. 

"When my friend was a boy still in his 
early teens, he — in a waking state — became 
aware one night of the shining appearance of 
a woman in his room: attracted and thrilled, 
but not affrighted thereby, he got out of bed 



CLAIRVOYANCE OR TELEPATHY 59 

to go to her, but she stayed him by a gesture, 
smiling, and, being very sensitive to impres- 
sions, he realized that this was no being of 
flesh and blood; and in a while it vanished 
from his sight through the door. He describes 
it as a radiant being — the brow, hands, and 
breasts being, as it were, the nucleus of the 
radiance. The face was indelibly stamped on 
his memory. Six or seven years later, on meet- 
ing me, he recognized in me the material form 
of the astral body (?) that had visited him. 
In one sense this did not surprise him, as he 
had felt he would one day meet in the flesh 
what had grown dear to him in the spirit: and 
from that day to this his psychic knowledge 
of all that concerns me has been extraordinary, 
and at all times perfect. 

"Three years ago, when he was on a visit 
to London, and I here, we both became aware 
one evening of some alien force that threatened 
to separate us. Each of us wrote that same 
night relating the experiences, and afraid one 
or other was about to die. Our letters crossed. 
In his he states that he went out into the 
garden to combat the fear, and that while 
there he distinctly heard me playing on the 
piano: mine told him that I played the piano 



60 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

to try and drive away what was becoming an 
unbearable horror, viz., fear of being separated. 

"Soon after he went quite suddenly to Can- 
ada on business. On his return journey, he 
says, the radiant form of me appeared on the 
deck and in the cabin two or three times. 

"Many strange things occurred about that 
time: among others we dreamed a long, tragic, 
complicated dream on the same night, detail 
for detail; when he came to see me the fol- 
lowing day, he told me he knew all that had 
taken place in my dream — he had had identi- 
cally the same one! We were both speechless! 
(That occurrence seems to me one step farther 
on than most of the phenomena one hears or 
reads of — because dreams are not altogether 
subject to the control of the mind; and to 
transmit from mind to mind incoherent dream 
happenings is amazing and baffling.) 

"In August of last year (1914) he was 
among the first to be called out to join the 
(naval) forces: and while in training at Wal- 
mer I went to see a clairvoyante, who told me I 
had been 'astrally united' to my friend six 
years previously to meeting in the flesh; she also 
told me many strange and wonderful things — 
bidding me 'keep my astral body' about my 



CLAIRYO VANCE OR TELEPATHY 61 

friend, as it would safeguard him in danger. 
When he went with the Naval Brigade to the 
defence of Antwerp (of which I only heard 
through the newspapers), no one knew where 
he was for fifteen or more days, during which 
time I knew not whether he was alive: but I 
threw the whole force of my being into 
'thought' and wrapped it psychically about him, 
determined to save him if possible. I wrote a 
postcard to Ostend on the chance of his getting 
it somehow, on which I wrote, 'Have Faith.' 
Some months later he wrote saying that when 
the horror in the trenches was at its worst, 
and he was ready to drop with fatigue and 
hunger and the sight of his friends dying, my as- 
tral body appeared to him, pointed on, and said, 
'Have Faith,' and then went before him 
during the long march into Groningen, where 
he has been interned ever since. A few months 
ago the postcard I sent to Ostend was returned 
to me, having been to Berlin in search of him! 
My appearance must been at the time of 
writing that postcard (I have all the letters 
dated and in order of all the happenings I am 
relating). 

"During his absence in Holland we have 
on two occasions dreamed the facsimile dreams 



62 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

on the same nights: one of my days he de- 
scribed in its every detail, even to the name 
of a book I read aloud. He sees and describes 
even my new frocks! 

"On May 1st, 1915 (11.15 a.m.), I was in 
a slight collision in mid-Mersey which gave me 
a shock; when the shock was over I turned 
to a friend and said, 'I should not be sur- 
prised if my friend in Holland knows all about 
it!' Three weeks later several postcards came 
to my people asking if all was well with me; 
and a letter to me, dated May 1st, 11.15 a.m., 
in which he says he received at that moment 
a shock of two ships colliding in mid-Mersey, 
on one of which I was aboard. (The sense of 
my safety did not come to him for a fortnight! 
Then it did — before receiving a word from me.) 
I have the letter dated and timed beside me 
here. 

"Another time I received word from him 
that a firm of London publishers was return- 
ing some mystical poems I had sent them, and 
bidding me not to grieve, as they were in 
advance of their time. The MSS. came one 
day before his letter, which had been three 
weeks on the way! 

"I could enumerate almost countless inci- 



CLAIRVOYANCE OR TELEPATHY 63 

dents of like nature, but will just add one 
more. He wrote asking me, about two months 
ago, to try and get news of a seagoing chum 
of his, of whom he had heard nothing since 
war broke out, and asking me to write to this 
man's fiancee. 

"I wrote, and received a fortnight ago a 
letter from him, telling me he had heard 
nothing of my friend in Holland, and that he 
himself had been out to India, where he had 
been seriously ill in hospital, but that he was 
well now, and back in England for Christmas. 
I sent the note on a few days ago to Holland 
(where it will arrive — if it gets there at all — 
in another ten days), but have received a day 
or two ago a letter from my friend, saying 
that through clairvoyance he has at last traced 
his chum, who 'has been in India, I feel sure, 
and very ill there,' but that he has 'seen him 
in a ship westward bound, due in England at 
Christmas'! So sure is he that his knowledge 
is correct that he even asks me to pass on 
the information to his chum's fiancee lest she 
should not know! His knowledge, too, of 
others is marvellous. I have heard him describe 
rooms and people he has never seen, to per- 
fection. 



64 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

"I wish you knew him.' His is a rarely 
beautiful spiritual nature: and his gifts are 
quite uncultivated. He is a natural psychic and 
clairvoyant, and far in advance, I think, of 
many who have made these things a lifelong 
study. I have been with him during three 
trance states (which he beautifully calls 'con- 
scious sleep'), and have heard him conversing 
with beings removed from our plane. 

"Physically he is strong, vigorous, athletic 
(only twenty-one), mentally well balanced, and 
full of healthy activity; a keen nature student. 
It is simply, I think, the possession of a 'sixth 
sense' which makes him more, not less, of a 
man: and his power of vision into the occult 
is, I should imagine, of the first order. He 
believes absolutely in pre-existence, as I myself 
am inclined to do: and he explains his inner 
knowledge of me as the result of intimacy in 
former lives. But this is by the way. I won- 
der sometimes if psychic phenomena might 
ever be explainable — in part — on these lines of 
a pre-existence? 

"Will you pardon me for this long letter? 
and if ever you desire a detailed, dated account 
of our experiences (if they are of any use) we 
will make them out in order after the war is 



CLAIRVOYANCE OR TELEPATHY 65 

over (when all the letters on both sides are to 
hand) and let you have them." 

(Miss) Winifred Aston. 

It may be asked why I include this and 
other telepathic experiences in a volume pur- 
porting to give evidences of survival. I do so 
because, in the present state of affairs, telepa- 
thy between the living seems to point to a con- 
ception of human personality which involves 
survival. We know of no "brain-waves" or 
wireless receiving stations inside our skulls, and 
distance in many cases is no impediment. For 
example, we may think of the collision jarring 
Miss Aston's nerves and brain, which sent up 
their message to her mind, which "telepathed" 
the news across in some non-physical way to 
her friend's mind, which sent word down to his 
normal consciousness and no doubt caused some 
sort of physical brain concomitant, as thoughts 
presumably do. This doctrine of the Self be- 
ing greater and "higher" than its ordinary 
manifestation is rendered probable by many 
phenomena of supernormal power in hypnosis 
and the like, and some such view of telepathy 
fits in with it. Thus the brain, though neces- 
sary now and for our present kind of experi- 



66 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

enee, is only an instrument or vehicle of some 
of our powers, and may indeed be a clog or 
hindrance. Communication down here, as 
compared with the direct superphysical com- 
munication up there, may be somewhat as 
writing is to telephoning — a slow and indirect 
process. The brain is not a necessary condi- 
tion of the existence of thought or feeling. 
Spirit is the primary thing; and, if telepathic 
incidents take place between spirit and spirit 
rather than between brain and brain, such inci- 
dents supply, by implication, evidence for sur- 
vival, and are a suitable introduction to evi- 
dence of more direct kind. 






CHAPTER IV 

OUT-OF-THE-BODY EXPERIENCES 

IN some of the foregoing cases spirits are 
perceived, so to speak, from this side. We 
cannot experience "that side" permanently 
until we are dead. But some people have 
crossed temporarily and have returned to the 
body to tell the tale. We seem to be spirits 
in prison, either for former sins or for our 
discipline and instruction, or as a necessary 
part of our growth. "The shell is needed till 
the bird is hatched," as the Russian proverb 
says, and perhaps our cabined condition here 
is the equivalent of that early embryonic stage. 
But we seem to be less hermetically sealed off, 
for some few of us, even while "alive," can 
get out of our shell and temporarily live in a 
wider world, w T ith immense increase of freedom 
and sense of well-being. This sometimes hap- 
pens to specially-constituted people in illness, 
when the patient nearly dies. The most 

67 



68 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

elaborate case of this kind on record is that of 
Dr. Wiltse, quoted in Myers's "Human Per- 
sonality," 1 but I have received several con- 
firmatory ones of the same general character, 
some of which I now quote. 

"Some years ago I became acquainted with 
a stalwart ex-soldier of our Civil War. He 
was an artilleryman, and was sitting on the 
ammunition chest of his gun when it was hit 
by a shell from the enemy's guns and exploded. 
The man was thrown into the air and his body 
fell to the ground. He said that he was up 
in the air, looking down at his own body which 
lay upon the ground at some distance from 
him. He seemed to be yet connected with the 
body by a slender cord of a clear silvery ap- 
pearance, and, while he looked on, two surgeons 
came by, and after looking at the body re- 
marked that he was dead. One of the medicos 
took hold of an arm and turned the body on 
its side, and remarked that he was dead; and 
they both passed on and left him. Soon after 
the stretcher-bearers came along and found 
there was life in the corpse, and carried him 
to the rear. 

1 Vol. ii., pp. 315-22; from Proceedings S.P.R., viii., p. 180. 



OUT-OF-THE-BODY EXPERIENCES 69 

"After the turning of the body, he said, 
'I came down that silver cord and returned to 
the old body and reanimated it, although my 
body was blind as a bat and my right arm was 
torn from my shoulder'; and he showed me 
on his face and chest forty-eight scars caused 
by the bursting shell. This man was living 
at St. Petersburg, Flo., and I think is yet 

livin S-" G. B. Crabbe. 

This is at second hand, but the next comes 
to me from the experient. 

"I want also to tell you of my one and only 
psychical experience. Years ago, when only 
seventeen, I was, in Calcutta, put under chloro- 
form to have a number of teeth out. I 
presently felt I, myself, was in space above my 
body, round which were the doctors, dentists, 
and my mother, and I remember wondering 
why I was not being judged, since I was 
obviously dead. I had been brought up as a 
strict Roman Catholic and taught that indi- 
vidual judgment followed death. I had never 
read any psychical books or experiences. I was 
afterwards told that my condition caused alarm, 
as I would not come back to consciousness. 
I've never forgotten that dream (?) and, when 



70 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

put under chloroform in September for my 
very serious operation, was anxious to see if 
anything of the same sort happened again. But 
it did not. I had no dream, and this time took 
the chloroform well. So it does look as if the 
soul had lifted from the body that long-ago 
time. I have no personal particular wish to 
survive after death. One gets so tired in this 
life! But whether one does or does not is the 
matter of greatest interest, especially so when 
those one loves have crossed over." 

(Miss) Beryl Hinton. 

"I shall be pleased for you to use my queer 
out-of-the-body experience in your collection, 
and am glad I mentioned it, since it has proved 
of interest. I do feel it to be remarkable, be- 
cause I was a young girl with thoughts more on 
this world than the next. I knew nothing of 
psychical matters, and, having been brought up 
in the Catholic Faith, one would imagine, had 
it been a dream, it would have been coloured 
by the accepted orthodox idea of what the after- 
death condition would be. But nothing of the 
sort. There was I, above my body, around 
which were gathered the people present. I 
could not talk to them, and I remember so 



OUT-OF-THE-BODY EXPERIENCES 71 

distinctly wondering, 'If I am dead, how is it 
I am not being judged?' That I was out of 
the body I do not doubt. I am told they had 
some difficulty in restoring me to consciousness. 
In the long years that have passed since that 
experience, when doubts as to the future have 
assailed me, it has gone farther in my own mind 
to prove survival than all the books on faith I 
had read. It has remained a vivid memory, and 
when, after an interval of thirty years, I was 
again to be given chloroform last September, I 
was tremendously interested to see if this 
'dream' or 'experience' would repeat itself; 
but this time the anaesthetic was very carefully 
given, and no sort of experience did I have." 

Beryl Hinton. 

The remoteness in time is the weakest point 
in the foregoing case; people ought to write 
down accounts of such experiences at once. The 
next case is much better in this respect, being 
recent. It is also fuller in detail, and it was 
not abnormal in the sense of being caused by 
shock or illness or anaesthetics. 

"About five years ago I woke from sleep to 
find 'myself clean out of the body, as the kernel 



72 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

of a nut comes out of its shell. I was conscious 
in two places — in a feeble degree, in the body 
which was lying in bed on its left side; and to 
a far greater degree, away from the body (far 
away, it seemed), surrounded by white opaque 
light, and in a state of absolute happiness and 
security (a curious expression, but one which 
best conveys the feeling). 

"The whole of my personality lay 'out 
there,' even to the replica of the body — which, 
like the body, lay also on its left side. I was 
not conscious of leaving the body, but woke 
up out of it. It was not a dream, for the 
consciousness was an enhanced one, as superior 
to the ordinary waking state as that is to the 
dream state. Indeed, I thought to myself, 
'This cannot be a dream,' so I willed 'out 
there' (there was no volition in the body), 
and as my spirit self moved so the body moved 
in bed. 

"I did not continue this movement. I was 
far too happy to risk shortening the experience. 
After lying in this healing and blessed light 
I became conscious of what, for want of a better 
term, I must call music; gentle and sweet it 
was as the tinkling of dropping water in a 
rocky pool, and it seemed to be all about me. 



OUT-OF-THE-BODY EXPERIENCES 73 

I saw no figure, nor wished to; the content- 
ment was supreme. The effect of these sounds 
was unutterably sweet, and I said to myself, 
'This must be the Voice of God.' I could not 
endure the happiness, but lost consciousness 
there, and returned unconscious to the body, 
and woke next morning as though nothing had 
happened. 

"I had been passing through a period of 
mental and spiritual stress at the time, but had 
not been indulging in psychism, had never 
attended a seance or similar phenomenon, had 
not, as I remember, been reading anything 
to act by way of suggestion. I am in no doubt 
whatever — so vivid was the happening — that 
had the feeble thread between soul and body 
been severed *F should have remained intact, 
the grosser body being sloughed off for a 
finer and one fitted for a lighter and hap- 
pier consciousness, for life more abundant,' 
in fact. 

"I am afraid my letter is a very long one, 
and perhaps the experience is not a very 
wonderful one after all. Doubtless you are 
acquainted with many similar and more re- 
markable. 

"I feel, however, I would like to make it 



74 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

known in such times as these; and, apart from 
its scientific aspect, if it conveys any personal 
comfort the trouble is repaid indeed. " 

John Huntley. 

In reply to my request for permission to 
publish, Mr. Huntley wrote interestingly as 
below: 

"Dear Sir,— Your letter of the 29th ult. 
to hand. 

"I agree that such experiences are helpful 
and should be known — especially at such a 
time as this. I am quite willing for you to 
include my account in your collection if you 
think the account is suitable for publication; 
it was written in a somewhat casual style, and 
not with the idea of appearing in print. How- 
ever, I leave that to you. 

"I procured your book, 'Religion and' 
Modern Psychology,' and find it interesting 
and informing. I think, though — I hope you 
won't mind my saying this — the distinction 
between the supernormal consciousness (includ- 
ing nature mysticism, various forms of 'cosmic' 
consciousness and 'enlargement' generally) and 
the pure flame of Mysticism proper, the rela- 
tion between Soul and Source in its highest 



OUT-OF-THE-BODY EXPERIENCES 75 

degree, might be more emphasized. I feel that 
supernormal happenings fall within these cate- 
gories, and the second is vastly greater than 
the first group and distinct enough for the dis- 
tinction to be made, since many ( ? all) experi- 
ence the first under the influence of 'love,' 
music, religious emotion, nature, and even 
wine and drugs. Sankaracharya, the Indian 
Monist Philosopher of the 8th century, speaks 
of the gross veil or impediment of the self 
(the body), and the psychic veil of the self 
(lifted in the first group of experience), and, 
beyond, the Spiritual Veil or impediment of 
the Self, beyond which is the Self in its state 
of ecstasy (lifted for or by all Mystics — I'm 
jealous of that word — the Mystics of all Re- 
ligions). 

"Plotinus says much the same in the 3rd 
century. From certain personal happenings 
(I'm sorry to sound the personal note) I incline 
to think this is the truth. Even the account 
I sent is withered before a downrush of the 
'Uncreated Light' — an ecstasy beyond de- 
scription, love in a white stream that went 
through and through the body, wave after wave, 
not in any spiritual state as in 'The Vision,' 
but in the ordinary waking state, lying upon 



£6 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

my bed, and repeated within a month. So 
overpowering was this, so unutterably 'holy,' 
that I scarcely like to refer to it, it seems too 
sacred. This was assuredly the rending of the 
Spiritual Veil, the Vision of Paul, Plotinus, and 
others, and revealed as well to an (otherwise) 
quite ordinary, commonplace person. 

"Thinking along these lines, I think the 
Dualist Philosophy is right, the worshipping 
of God external to the devotee, both in this life 
and the next — the Heaven, the Paradise of 
different Religions — so long as the Psychic Veil 
is undrawn, and he is a distinct personality. 
With the clue before us, we may say that the 
Monist is right when, in this or the next life 
(although not of necessity even in the next 
life), the ultimate Veil is withdrawn and Soul 
and God are mingled together in ecstasy beyond 
belief — consciousness remaining, however. 

"I don't know if I have worried you with 
this long letter; the subject has run away with 
me, and one seldom gets an opportunity to 
enter into these matters, of absorbing interest 
though they are. If I have, please excuse my 
selfish infliction. 

"I may add that I am not a 'Spiritualist,' 
or Theosophist, or Occultist forcer of these con- 



OUT-OF-THE-BODY EXPERIENCES 77 

ditions, but a member of the Society of Friends, 
and one of liberal views in matters of Religious 
belief. 

"I hope your health will soon be re-estab- 
lished. — Yours sincerely, 

"John F. Huntley." 

I regard the foregoing as an extremely valu- 
able and instructive letter, and I am free to 
confess that I have been gradually brought into 
line with its conclusions since the writing of 
the somewhat rationalistic book (published in 
1911) to which Mr. Huntley refers. I now 
feel that, however it may be with this or that 
experience, the truest truth lies at least in the 
mystical direction; and though there are many 
qualities and grades, and though there must be 
moderation in seeking them — for we are here 
to live the earth life and to learn its lessons — we 
are nevertheless right in facing that way rather 
than the other. We shall return to this ques- 
tion in connexion with another case later. 



CHAPTER V 

VISIONS OF THE DEAD 

AFTER considering these out-of-the-body 
experiences, and assuming for the moment 
that they represent something real, it is natural 
to suppose that death is the same thing, save 
that the withdrawal becomes permanent. Thus 
we no longer have the testimony of the one 
who has had the experience. He does not re- 
turn to the body to tell the tale. But may it 
not be that someone left on this side, happening 
to have the "sixth sense," or whatever it is that 
is required, may see the departed spirit, or its 
spiritual body, or astral vehicle, or whatever we 
like to call it, as the returning experient saw 
his own in the first-hand cases? 

Such visions are fairly common. I will 
quote a few, first discussing shortly the ques- 
tion of terminology. 

There is no completely satisfactory word 
for the kind of phenomena which we now come 

78 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 79 

to. "Visions" will do for some of them, but 
they are not limited to things seen; sometimes 
they are things heard. "Sensory Automa- 
tisms" prejudges the question, involving the 
assumption that the phenomena are self-pro- 
duced. "Hallucination" is almost equally 
objectionable, for to most people it implies 
subjectivity. Some attempt has been made to 
remove this impression, and, as used by some 
S.P.R. workers, it is non-committal; but 
Gurney's definition supports the popular view, 
for he calls a hallucination a "percept which 
lacks, but which can only by distinct reflection 
be recognized as lacking, the objective basis 
which it suggests." But that is just the point. 
Some hallucinations, though lacking a basis 
material enough to impress other people's 
senses, do undoubtedly point to an objective 
basis of some sort, as Myers himself thought. 
They are not entirely subjective. 

Yet it is not always possible to prove objec- 
tivity. For instance, consider the following 
case: 

"My dear wife died on September 1st last, 
and my little boy, aged six years, often talks 
to me about seeing his dead mother, and tells 



80 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

me she often sleeps with him; and he also talks 
about her coming to his bedroom to see him. 
He is, I may say, a most level-headed little 
fellow, and has never been frightened with 
tales about ghosts or other things, and is also 
a most truthful boy. His dead mother was a 
most earnest Christian, and she brought her 
little boy up to believe in God the Father 
Almighty, the Eternal Lord, and yet he talks 
of these things, but only as if he is pleased to 
see his dear mother. I also have a constant 
feeling that there is something that she wants 
me to know, to tell me." ^ Yates. 

We cannot altogether dismiss the idea that 
the child's experiences may have been wholly 
due to a vivid imagination stimulated by his 
natural affection, particularly in view of their 
frequency. On the other hand, they may have 
had an "objective" basis, as the child thought. 
A similar story is related of Charlotte Bronte 
when a child of five. 

"One day in the autumn or winter suc- 
ceeding Mrs. Bronte's death, Charlotte came 
to her nurse, wild and white with the excite- 
ment of having seen 'a fairy' standing by 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 81 

baby Anne's cradle. When the two ran back 
to the nursery, Charlotte flying on ahead, 
treading softly not to frighten the beautiful 
visitant away, no one was there besides the 
baby sleeping sweetly in the depths of her 
forenoon nap. Charlotte stood transfixed, 
her eyes wandered incredulously around the 
room. 

" 'But she Was here just now!' she insisted. 
'I really and truly did see her!' And no 
argument or coaxing could shake her from the 
belief." 1 

It seems very likely that the "fairy" was 
the baby's mother, still watching over her 
child, and momentarily visible to Charlotte. In 
view of what we now know about apparitions 
which are really evidential, we must not dis- 
miss offhand such experiences as this, though 
non-evidential in the strict sense. 

And the percipient is not always a child. 
In the following case it was an alert business 
man. The happiness of the released spirit is 
noteworthy, confirming the feelings of those 
who have quitted the body temporarily in ill- 
ness, like Mr. Huntley, whose experiences have 
been quoted, and Captain Burton, whose ex- 

1 Marion Harland's "Charlotte Bronte at Home," p. 31. 



82 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

perience will be quoted later (pp. 155-62). As 
to subjective hallucination — I cannot dismiss 
the incident offhand as subjective. In fact, I 
am not yet convinced that anything is subjec- 
tive — i.e., wholly unconnected with, and inde- 
pendent of, anything outside the experient's 
own mind. If anything like what we know as 
causation extends throughout the mental as well 
as the physical plane, I think some cause, 
beyond material brain changes — dubious and 
hypothetical, but no doubt probable — must be 
allowed to be likely. In this following case I 
see no good reason for denying that the sur- 
viving spirit of the dead woman was the cause 
of the vision. The narrator is a good witness, 
and is editor of an American newspaper. 

"The most surprising, solemn, and com- 
forting event of my life was the seeing of the 
spirit of my dead wife. 

"Something over four years ago (in 1907), 
at eleven o'clock of a bright, clear forenoon 
in St. Luke's Hospital in El Paso, Texas, my 
loved wife died. I was at her bedside when 
she passed away. I was bending over her at 
the time. Almost instantly, before I had 
hardly become erect, I felt a most peculiar 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 83 

sensation. It is impossible to describe the 
sensation. It seemed as if some powerful 
penetrating rays were passing, with a rapid but 
steady movement not like a shock or flash, 
through my head and body, as far down as the 
lower part of the chest. There was no sensa- 
tion of pain, heat, or cold. 

"As this feeling came upon me I seemed 
to see in a mist like a white fog shutting out 
the things I would naturally see. This fog 
rolled away on all sides from the figure and 
face of what I saw. It was my wife, or at 
least her spirit. I saw the head, face, and part- 
way down the figure. 

"You know when you see anything. I saw 
this spirit just as clearly, plainly, distinctly, 
as I could see you if you were to come into 
this room as I write now, and stand about eight 
feet from me. There was no mistake about it. 

"It was different light from ordinary day- 
light. It was much like seeing a person in an 
exceedingly bright, powerful white light made 
by some burning gas. 

"The figure was erect or standing, appar- 
ently about eight feet or a little less away. 
My whole attention was concentrated upon 
what I saw; and now, after four years, I can 



84 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

recall in memory the face and expression then, 
better than I can recall the face and expression 
of my wife when she was alive. 

"The face of the spirit was more beautiful 
and glorious than anything I have ever seen 
on earth. Relief (for I know she must have 
dreaded death), joy, and victory were in the 
flashing eyes and wonderful smile. It was in- 
deed the face of an angel. It was beyond 
description. 

"The first thing I noted was the eyes, 
which were turning away from looking at me 
to look at her own form lying upon the bed. 
Why I was not to look into those joyous eyes 
I know not. She had a peculiar white streak 
in her black hair, and this I saw plainly in the 
spirit. I saw her teeth as she smiled looking 
down upon her form on the bed. 

"There was one great difference in the face 
of the spirit, or rather, two differences be- 
tween the face of the spirit and her face when 
alive. The spirit looked younger by twenty 
years. Instead of the poor, frail, emaciated 
face, there was the face of one in health, in 
the prime of life, and I distinctly saw a rosy 
colour in the cheeks. The whole form and face 
was shining, not with the steady light of a 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 85 

lamp, but with streams of light that seemed to 
radiate from the spirit, blurring the outlines 
slightly and then restoring them to perfect 
clearness and shape. I once looked into a tube 
in which there was some radium — so I was told 
— and could see what I called throbs of light 
in the tube. Well, as I thought afterwards 
about seeing the spirit, it was as if I had seen 
it by throbs of light w T hich made it seem as if 
the light streamed in every direction from the 
face and figure. 

"The other difference I noted, besides the 
look of health and youth, was the greatly quick- 
ened intelligence of the spirit. The flash of 
the eyes was so bright, the smile and expres- 
sion so vivid, that they made me feel like a 
slow, inferior being. 

"The image did not last long — only a few 
seconds — but long enough for me to note with 
perfect clearness the things I have described. 
Then the being or spirit seemed to vanish as a 
cloud of smoke from my cigar vanishes or grows 
thin and invisible in the air. There was some- 
thing horrible in this as the image grew thin 
and indistinct; it seemed like a floating mist, 
with hollows where the eyes were. It was like 
a ghost as that is often described. 



86 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

"There is one more thing to tell you, 
though I did not think of it at the time. When 
my wife died I was sitting by her side, in a 
chair near the bed. I was looking at her face, 
which was nearly in front of me, but a little to 
the right and, of course, a little lower — say two 
feet — than my face. Well, I did not turn my 
eyes or face from that direction as I sat up more 
erect in my chair. Then, without turning my 
head or looking up, I saw the spirit very much 
to the right and somewhat above me, as much 
so as a person would be who stood on the 
bed at near the feet of the lifeless form. So 
I did not see the spirit by a light that came 
through the eyes. Still I saw it, and saw it 
plainly. 

"As the sensation or influence came upon 
me I nearly lost my balance or power of keep- 
ing erect; but after it passed away I felt no 
ill effects. There came a wonderful calmness 
upon me. 

"Of course I did not fully realize and com- 
prehend all these things at the time. It was 
some time afterwards that I realized that I did 
not see the spirit with my eyes. 

"Here is what I most firmly believe. Light 
is an impression made upon the brain, usually 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 87 

by rays of light; but that in this case of my 
seeing a spirit the brain received an impression, 
the same as sight, and that this was done by 
the passing the wall of the skull of concen- 
trated rays of some sort; and that by these 
rays I really saw something that existed, but 
which was invisible when only the ordinary 
rays of light were used. 

"I am not a Spiritualist. I am a plain 
business man, successful in a small way. How- 
ever, I believe in God and His Son Jesus 
Christ. I read the Bible and believe in prayer. 

"One thing more: there were several others 
in the room besides myself, but none of them 
saw the spirit. They were all at the foot of 
the bed, while I was at the side, so that rays 
coming from the spirit would not pass through 
them." 

The narrator regards his vision — quite 
reasonably, in my opinion — as a deliberate and 
purposed act on the part of the released spirit. 
Certainly it had a helpful consolatory effect. 
In fact, the narrator says, elsewhere, that he 
was so passionately devoted to his wife that 
he thinks he would have lost his reason at her 
death if he had not seen her spirit "in such 



88 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

joy." The sceptic may say it was a subjective 
hallucination. Admittedly nothing can be 
proved either way. But, to my mind, the sub- 
jective hallucination theory seems the most un- 
supported of guesses — indeed, is little more than 
a collection of imposing polysyllables — while, on 
the other hand, there is sense and reason in the 
spiritistic interpretation. The mechanism of it 
— the how of it, ether waves or what not — 
remains obscure. But so it does on any 
theory. We hope to learn something of the 
process in due time, when we have amassed 
more facts. 

The next case is similar to the foregoing, 
with the addition of a "guardian angel" — per- 
haps some pre-deceased relative, or a spirit 
specially occupied in looking after children on 
that side. 

[From first letter.] 

"I am sending you the date when my 
daughter Marjorie passed away. I have seen 
her since she passed from the flesh, and have 
spoken to my parents of it, but to no one else, 
as I am very reticent on these subjects unless 
the person is interested; but something urges 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 89 

me to write to you, and if you care for me to 
describe what I have actually seen I will do 



so." 



[From second letter.'] 

"Strange to say, there were two Marjories 
in the same class at Sunday school — mine being 
one of them — who died the same week with the 
same complaint, diphtheria. The night follow- 
ing the day she was buried — it would be about 
twelve o'clock — I was wide awake and casually 
looking up at the ceiling of the bedroom, and 
all at once there came to my notice a light 
almost like a star, and it gradually expanded 
into a beautiful girl-form shrouded in a burning 
glow. I sat upright in bed, intent on watch- 
ing; then came another light and opened out 
in exactly the same way, and they stood, or 
rather hovered, side by side. And to the back 
of them was the outline of a Mother- Angel with 
wings, as though in charge of them. I particu- 
larly noticed that neither of the girl-forms had 
any wings at all, but they were full of life. 
Then I began to wonder which was Marjorie; 
but I had no sooner had the thought than one of 
the forms gradually folded up, as it were, and 
disappeared; and on looking round to my Sadie, 



90 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

whom I was sleeping with, I saw the same thing 
appear right on a level with her face — the spirit 
of Marjorie, who had moved from ceiling to 
bedside to assure me it was her, and that she 
had come to see her little sister whom she loved. 
It struck me as the most wonderful thing that 
she knew exactly what I was thinking of and 
was determined to force herself to my notice 
by hovering round in different positions. . . . 
I watched her for fully an hour, and I am fully 
convinced that she is a Light in Heaven, and 
that this was nothing short of a vision to show 
me what child-life really was after it leaves 
this world; and, although I am only a bread- 
winner, I would rather own this secret than I 
would possess all the wealth of England, for 
it shows me how very temporary everything 
is in this flesh condition, and how very real 
everything is in the Spirit world, although not 
visible to the ordinary eye. If only that little 
scene on the wall could have been painted, it 
would have put away any possible doubt for 
thousands, of Life after Death. Possibly even 
this little account of a true experience will be 
a guide to someone in these dark days. I hope 
it may be." 

(Mrs.) A. Holden. 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 91 

In the next case — third experience — the 
withdrawal of the "spiritual body" seems to 
have been perceived. 

"On three occasions I have had curious ex- 
periences. First, six weeks after her death I 
became conscious of my sister-in-law, standing 
in bright sunshine, rather taller than in life. She 
said, or transmitted, for I cannot imagine or 
recollect that I heard her voice: 'The other life 
is very different from what you think.' I was 
not afraid, and I spoke to no one about it. I 
had not loved her particularly, and I had not 
thought about the other life. 

"On the next occasion I went to see an old 
friend who had lost his wife — a cousin of my 
husband's — again not a special friend. As I left 
him at his gate I was conscious of a wonderful 
companionship of great warmth, which went 
with me to the turn of the road and then 
ceased. But I said nothing; but, believe me, 
it was much more than seeing. 

"The third experience, again different, was 
at the death of my only brother. His wife 
tended him, so I sat with my attention riveted 
on him for long hours except when his wife 
was forced to stand and move, when I held his 
hand. I saw then something like a film, or 



92 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

a 'bellying sail,' leaving his frame and rising, 
and clearing as it rose till I could see it no 
more. When I sat between him and the win- 
dow I saw it — when I sat with him between 
me and the window I could not see it. These 
experiences were divided by years, and I did 
not seek them; in two my emotions were not 
concerned. An old man, a clergyman, to whom 
I told my strange sight (at my brother's death) 
some years after, and who is experienced in 
some of the older wisdom which is now mis- 
doubted, told me that I had seen the with- 
drawal of the astral body." 

G. M. Vernon. 

The following case bears out rather strik- 
ingly the evidence which I have had through 
sensitives regarding the appearance of spirits. 
Ordinary people not long dead seem usually to 
appeared dressed pretty nearly as in their 
earthly days; but more advanced and longer- 
dead beings are dressed in robes "white and 
glistering," as in the description of the Trans- 
figuration. The experient in this next case 
does not seem to have been influenced by ortho- 
dox notions, for — as was natural in a free- 
thinker — she thought only of graveclothes ! 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 93 

"Some time ago I undertook duties that 
taxed me to the uttermost. Later, the injuries 
of an accident made it physically impossible 
for me to do them. Not knowing at that time 
how grave these injuries were, I day by day 
attempted the impossible. One night my pain 
was so great I could not rest in any position, 
so spent it kneeling on the bed, my head rest- 
ing on a pile of cushions. Near dawn I fell 
asleep, but my own moaning soon awakened 
me; I heard myself saying in a kind of wail, 
'I cannot lift it — I cannot lift it!' (The short 
sleep had been a nightmare dream of lifting 
heavy weights from the floor — and to lift any- 
thing caused me the greatest pain.) 

"As soon as I heard my own cry I became 
wide awake, and, somehow, I at once knew I 
was not alone; looking to the door, I saw 
my mother quite plainly. My own feeling was 
delight; at once I cried, 'Is that you, Mumsie?' 
She was looking at me with an indescribable 
look of tenderness and compassion. She raised 
her hand, and in a voice of pity, but of firmness 
and command, she said (pointing, as it were, 
to the weights of my dream), 'Put them down 
and come away.' Meantime I felt astonished, 
and looked at her more carefully. It was then 



94 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

I noticed she seemed to be fading away, but 
before going she repeated still more command- 
ingly, 'Come away.' 

"In a moment all my feeling of that duty 
and responsibility fell from me, and never re- 
turned ; I felt my work there was done now that 
my mother had come from her grave to put an 
end to my agony of suffering. Having put 
my hand to a plough it is not my custom 
to look back, and I know I should otherwise 
have struggled on until in a short time I died, 
as my doctor can tell you I would have done. 

"I have often dreamt of my mother, but 
in the dreams she wears her ordinary garments, 
and when I wake I know it was a dream; but 
when I see her when I am wide awake she al- 
ways seems in long white garments — perhaps 
her grave clothes, they are very white — and 
there is always a light around her, and I always 
know I am wide awake. This is the most 
striking of these kind of appearances, though 
there have been others less vivid. 

"In the matter of telepathy, that happens 
so often that I do not speak of it. People think 
one strange if one says much of these things. 
And it is strange they happened to me, for I 
would not believe in them until the absolute 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 95 

truth of them has at last forced me to believe 
there is something more than nature and 
materialism — the supernatural; and that admis- 
sion is the beginning of all religions. The 
greater part of my life I have been an agnostic, 
for in my small way I could not accept as truth 
what I had not realized to be the truth; but 
now my belief in God could not be shaken. 
Once one has proof of the supernormal, as I 
have had, all becomes easy. 

"It is strange that such experiences should 
happen to me, for during my life I have 
liberally been sprinkled with such names as 
' freethinker/ 'agnostic,' 'strong-minded,' 'too 
practical,' and the like. I do not know that 
they were deserved, I being only an ordinary 
simple person with a desire to find truth; but 
that is difficult when one's knowledge and 
opportunities for gaining it are limited." 

Margaret Daw. 

In the next case a spirit w T as visible to two 
percipients, which is unusual. Unfortunately, 
the second one is dead, and we have no first- 
hand account of him. It will be noted that 
the experiences did not fit in with Mrs. Irvine's 
own ideas, which were orthodox. The modern 



96 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

evidence supports the notion of Paradise as a 
pleasant intermediate state — where, e.g., the 
repentant thief would go at once after death 
(Luke xxiii. 43) — and not as the ultimate heaven 
of unalloyed bliss, for which few, if any, mortals 
are fitted at the end of their earthly sojourn. 

"Some years ago I was very seriously ill. 
It was not thought possible that I could live; 
but suffice it to say that I had not the slightest 
fear of death. This is precisely what occurred. 
My husband was sitting by the bedside, and 
quite suddenly I heard my father's footsteps 
coming through the hall. They came through 
the hall, then on each step of the stair, and 
along the landing, and then I saw him go and 
stand at the foot of my bed with both hands 
folded, leaning on the bedrail. It was not a 
dream, nor was I in the least delirious. But he 
stood there, looking so radiantly happy. I 
looked at him and then at my husband. There 
was no speech at all between us, but we all 
understood each other quite clearly. It was 
mental communication. 

"My husband said to me in surprise, 'Well, 
that is your father, although you told me you 
had buried him.' I said, 'We did bury him, 
in Rotterdam. I saw him put into the ground.' 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 97 

"Then my father, with the most radiant 
smile, said, 'Oh, there is no death beyond the 
grave.' 

"I answered in a flash, 'Isn't there?' He 
said, 'No; merely a stepping over the border. 
And it is so beautiful beyond.' 

"But I never had any doubt about it. Still, 
it was a great joy for me to know that he was 
so supremely happy. And he repeated, 'Oh, 
it is so beautiful beyond.' And then he dis- 
appeared. But he seemed to convey the idea 
that no words could express — the joy and the 
bliss. 

"The expression on his dear face was suf- 
ficient for me to know that. For I worshipped 
my precious father. 

"He had had a terribly heavy cross to bear 
all his life here, and he did not deserve it. So 
good a man, so true, so upright, so cultured 
and refined. 

"I always felt it an honour to be the 
daughter of so noble a man. 

"I got better gradually, and I was sorry to 
find that I had to remain in this world. 

"But I am absolutely convinced that his dear 
soul lives. I am for ever longing to go to him; 
so that death has no terrors for me. 



98 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

"Later, during a much more severe illness, 
in the same year that Queen Victoria died, I saw- 
also my father and my sister. She died two 
years after my father. His death took place in 
1896. 

"During this next terrible illness I saw them 
both sitting together at a small table, and it was 
spread with a spotless white cloth. They were 
not speaking, but looked perfectly happy and so 
contented. I put my face between the two and 
said, 'What are you waiting for?' 

"My sister looked up with the sweetest 
smile, and said, 'We are waiting for you.' I 
said, 'Are you happy here?' She looked up 
again and said, 'Oh, so happy !" 

"I then said to her, 'Would you not like to 
come back?' And the joy on her face was quite 
overcast as she said, with quite a shudder, I 
could never come back.' I said, 'Couldn't you?' 
She said, 'No! Never come back!' I said, 
"Not for Joe's sake? Poor Joe, he is so miser- 
able.' It was her husband I had referred to. 
And she seemed to be quite a long time in realiz- 
ing whom I was referring to. When she grasped 
it she gave such a loud groan, and looked at me 
with such reproachful eyes, which said so plainly, 
'Why did you come and disturb me here?' 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 99 

"That was all I ever saw in the way of de- 
parted spirits. I never craved to see them. I 
never prayed to see them. I believe if I had 
been told I should see them I would have been 
terrified. One thing that struck me forcibly 
was that thej^ had no idea of time. They didn't 
know whether they had been there a day, or a 
year, or a thousand years. And that brings the 
words of the Bible to my mind — that 'a thou- 
sand years are as a day in His sight.' 

"But what perplexes me is, they being in 
heaven (for to my mind they are; and accord- 
ing to the old orthodox faith in which I was 
born and reared), I believe they are at perfect 
rest and peace in that promised land; still, that 
being so, how then could my sister be made 
unhappy there — if only for one brief moment? 
She seemed to have quite forgotten her hus- 
band. He was passionately fond of her, and 
could not have been more kind or tender to- 
wards her. 

"Why, then, did she groan at the remem- 
brance of his loneliness? Through the space of 
all those years since 1901, I can hear that groan 
now whenever I think about it. 

"We are told that there shall be no sorrow 
there and that God shall wipe away all tears. 



loo MAN IS A SPIRIT 

And we sing in our hymns: 'Oh, what the joy 
and the glory must be, Those endless Sabbaths, 
the blessed ones see!' 

"Why, then, can they be made to sorrow? 

"Yet one other experience, if I do not 
tire you too much with the length of these 
pages. 

"When a child of fifteen years of age I 
was also very, very ill, and on the occasion then 
I saw the most delightful Vision. Where my 
spirit was I cannot say, but I do think I have 
been permitted to draw aside the curtain and 
to peep into Paradise. Possibly the difference 
lay in my age, being then a child. But it was 
the most delightful scene. There were numbers 
of children, and some were weaving garlands 
of flowers, some were gathering flowers, and 
some were playing together. But what I heard 
then has never left me — the music, oh, the 
music! I shall never, never forget. 

"No one can ever understand, perhaps, how 
sorry I was to recover. My father took me to 
the Continent as soon as I was able to travel, 
and he asked me to tell our relatives there all 
about it. I did so, and to many more besides. 
I would gladly die to-morrow if I could, if only 
to be able to hear what I heard then and to 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 101 

see also what I saw then. I was enchanted with 
the Land beyond the grave. 

"After the Titanic went down, and the 
news came through, I distinctly heard a mes- 
sage (I suppose from another world, for I do 
not know where else it could come from; it 
seemed to be whispered in the air). It was, 
'There's something worse to follow.' 

"And last February, on the 22nd, quite 
early in the morning, I awoke suddenly by 
hearing my name (Christian name) called so 
loudly — and then a second time — and even a 
third time — so loudly was it called that I sat 
straight up in bed and thought it was someone 
calling me from the road. Then, with my eyes 
wide open, I saw the most fearful blaze of fire; 
the whole city was surrounded with flames. It 
was a horrible spectacle. It really terrified me, 
and had the most haunting effect on me for 
fully fourteen days. 

"A few days later a friend came to see me, 
but, she being of a highly nervous temperament, 
I never speak of such things to her. She was 
exceedingly pale and agitated, and asked if she 
could speak to me alone. I said, ' Surely you 
can.' Then she asked, 'Would I not laugh at 
her or think her foolish?' I assured her that 



102 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

I never laughed at sincerity. She then told me 
the selfsame thing — that she had seen miles and 
miles of flame and fire; and she was unspeak- 
ably alarmed. 

"Of course, I am convinced that sooner or 
later this will occur. But whether it will 
be this city or not I cannot say. 

"I should be glad to know whether anyone 
else has had similar experiences. Last October 
I also became aware that an elderly lady friend 
of mine was in great trouble, so much so that 
she was on the verge of losing her reason. The 
knowledge came to me like a flash, and I set 
off at once on my bicycle to go and see her, 
for she has always said I could comfort her 
when nobody else could. When I arrived I 
told her, and also her daughters, what I had 
come for and why I had come, and she replied, 
'Oh, Mrs. Irvine, it's perfectly true.' Then 
she regarded me very gravely and said, 'I do 
really think you are uncanny.' 

"And this is what most people tell me. 
Therefore I am very reticent regarding these 
things. I have spoken to one or two clergymen, 
and others connected with the City Mission, 
and asked if they could tell why I should be 
so favoured, if favour it could be called. And 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 103 

one replied: 'We all know the King, but the 
King does not know us. Those of his friends 
and servants who live daily with him in and 
about his Palace are naturally familiar with his 
ways. Is that not so?' I said, 'Yes.' 

"Then he looked at me and said: 'Have 
you got your answer?' 

"It puzzled me just at first to know what 
he meant, then I grasped it. 

"As I have already stated in my previous 
letter, from the earliest days of my child- 
hood I have drifted involuntarily to the things 
Eternal, and things temporal have no weight 
with me. 

"My hand aches with writing, and I fear 
you will be tired with reading." 

M. E. Irvine. 

The foregoing experiences are not evidential 
in the strict sense, a normal explanation being 
at least possible. In the next case there is a 
certain evidentiality, for the percipient did not 
know of the death of the person who appeared; 
and, even if she could have inferred it, the 
detail about the thumb could not have been 
known. The weakness of the narrative is in its 
remoteness, which leads us to wonder whether 



104 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

memories are reliable enough to have trans- 
mitted it to us correctly. But it was clearly 
a striking experience, and one not likely 
to have been much altered as to its main 
feature, which is the evidentially important 
one. 

'I have been reading Sir Oliver Lodge's 
book, 'The Survival of Man,' and was par- 
ticularly interested in Mrs. Severn's experience 
of communicated sensation, related in Chap- 
ter V., because of an experience that my aunt 
— long since dead — had when she was a girl. 
I heard the story more than once, and am quite 
sure of the details. My aunt was ailing and 
obliged to keep to her bed. Her great friend, 
Elizabeth S., was at the same time lying seri- 
ously ill a mile or two away. One day my 
aunt surprised her sisters by running downstairs 
in her nightdress. 'Oh!' she exclaimed, 'Eliza- 
beth S. is dead. I have seen her. She came 
to my bedside and she has bitten my thumb.' 
Very soon a messenger arrived to say that 
Elizabeth had died, and the time coincided with 
my aunt's vision. Later, they learned that the 
dying girl had bitten her own thumb. This 
must have happened seventy or eighty years 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 105 

ago. I have the greatest respect for my aunt, 
who was a saintly and very intelligent woman, 
and had, moreover, a sceptical turn of mind, 
but I never quite accepted the story as a real 
experience. Mrs. Severn's similar story makes 
me think it may have been very real. 

"I think that possibly this may be interest- 
ing to you in your investigations." 

(Mrs.) A. Wood. 

This does not quite fulfil the requirements 
of Dr. Samuel Johnson in a very sensible pas- 
sage on the subject, but it comes near, for the 
vision did convey knowledge not normally pos- 
sessed or naturally inferable. This is what 
Johnson said: 

"I make a distinction between what a man 
may experience by the mere strength of his 
imagination and what imagination cannot pos- 
sibly produce. Thus, suppose I should think 
I saw a form and heard a voice cry, 'Johnson, 
you are a very wicked fellow, and unless you 
repent you will certainly be punished'; my 
own unworthiness is so deeply impressed upon 
my mind that I might imagine I thus saw and 
heard, and therefore I should not believe that 
an external communication had been made to 



106 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

me. But if a form should appear and a voice 
should tell me that a particular man had died 
at a particular place and a particular hour, a 
fact which I had no apprehension of, nor any 
means of knowing, and this fact, with all its 
circumstances, should afterwards be unques- 
tionably proved, I should, in that case, be per- 
suaded that I had supernatural intelligence, 
imparted to me." x 

The next case does very nearly come up to 
Dr. Johnson's standard. 

"I may say first that I am an active man 
of business, well over sixty; that I have never 
even attended a spiritualist seance; but that 
when I was younger I was sufficiently inter- 
ested in the literature of psychic phenomena 
to accept as proved that personality can express 
itself and present itself by means which are out- 
side what we have been taught to regard as 
physical laws, and therefore presumably exists 
(perhaps not universally, but only under special 
development) independently of corporeal ex- 
istence. On the other hand, I have a fairly 
keen perception as to the value of evidence, 
and amongst friends who have been attracted 

1 Boswell's "Life," p. Ill (Washbourne's 1847 edition). Johnson 
cetat, 54. 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 107 

by professional spiritualists T have found fre- 
quently a great readiness for self-deception, 
and have been convinced that their 'mediums' 
are often charlatans whose powers are based 
upon a mixture of hypnotic suggestion, thought- 
reading, and craftiness. My attitude towards 
psychic phenomena is one of reservation. I 
do not doubt that unidentified and excep- 
tional forces exist, but I have a full life 
and have been quite content to await the results 
of scientific investigation. Such things do not 
occupy my mind. My only personal approach 
to them is that throughout my life I have 
been conscious that I have with many people 
an intuitive and rapid perception of what is 
in their thoughts, or what they feel, whether 
they are in the house or in a given room. 
The perception is not referable to any of the 
ordinary senses. I think dogs do the same 
thing in their degree. The senses known to us 
do not exhaust the channels of perception 
and communication. 

"Now for the facts which I venture to sub- 
mit for your consideration. 

"I have known for nearly forty years a gen- 
tleman named Henry Vint, the head of an 
important firm having offices in Lombard Street. 



io8 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

We have always been very cordial friends, 
but as we grew older we were both of us 
less in the City and our lives diverged some- 
what, so that it may be eighteen months since 
we last met. In June last I met his partner 
in the street, and, knowing that one of Vint's 
sons had been wounded, I stopped to ask for 
news. He told me that Mr. Vint had taken 
his son down to the seaside. Next month I 
went to my house in Devonshire for ten weeks, 
and Vint's name was never mentioned there, 
so I had no kind of communication about him 
from any source from June onwards. 

"On September 13th, two days after I had 
returned, I had been at a Board meeting in the 
City, and was hurrying down Lombard Street 
at 1.55 to another. My thoughts were entirely 
occupied with business, when I saw Mr. Vint 
approaching me a few paces off, quite as usual, 
coming from his office. I went forward to 
shake hands, but — he was not there! I was 
baffled for a moment, then instantaneously 
there came very clearly before my eyes (I can 
see it still) a picture of him, quite cut off from 
our surroundings, at a little distance, and rest- 
ing on nothing. He appeared as a very sick 
and suffering man with flushed face. I was 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 109 

filled with a sense of deep sympathy and sorrow 
for him, and felt so uneasy that I resolved to 
inquire after him. Next morning I learnt that 
he had been attacked with meningitis on the 
night of the 12th, or rather early morning on 
the 13th, for the attack began after midnight, 
and had died three or four hours before my 
vision. He had visited his office for the last 
time on the 11th, was very unwell, and walked 
with his partner's help along the same street 
where I saw him, supernormally, forty-eight 
hours later, when he was dead. I wrote down 
my account the day after my vision. 

"The curious points seen: (1) The double 
appearance, first as an ordinary man among 
others in the street — the street which had been 
the centre of his thoughts for forty years — and 
next as a sick and very suffering man in a 
Vision' detached from all surroundings and a 
little way off, so as to be somewhat under 
life size; a vision which I carried with me as 
I continued to walk, until I took my seat at 
the Board. (2) Although Mr. Vint had died 
three or four hours before, I did not see him 
as a dead man, but as a suffering one, and the 
vision did not make me think he was dead, but 
only that he was in trouble, and I felt exceed- 



no MAN IS A SPIRIT 

ingly sorry for him; I speculated whether some 
bad news of his sons at the front had crushed 
him and brought on some illness. (3) Although 
we had been friends, and he was a particularly 
kind and sympathetic man, there was no spe- 
cial relation between us to account for my expe- 
rience. 

"It appears to me that the hypothesis which 
best corresponds to the facts is (1) that V.'s 
'persona' did return to the familiar environ- 
ment after his death — his business life had 
concentrated on that street; (2) that it hap- 
pened to me to come into local contact with 
the psychic influence created, and that amongst 
all others in the street I was the only one at 
the moment between whom and Mr. Vint there 
was enough friendship and sympathy to bring 
about perception of his presence and response 
as would have occurred in life; (3) that the 
'persona' was still dominated by the great pain 
suffered a few hours before, and he desired that 
I should understand and feel for him; (4) that 
fifty yards away the clerks in his office knew 
that he was dead, and probably the news was 
known to others in the City also, consequently 
telepathy from some of them would have been 
reasonable if my impression had been of his 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 1 1 1 

death, but, this not being so — for I had no 
thought that it meant death until I heard next 
morning — the telepathic theory seems unlikely. 
In fact, the cause of his death was not known 
that day, being revealed only by a post mortem, 
so the pain and flushed face couldy hardly be 
telepathic from anyone in the City. 

"The first impression showed V. just as I 
usually saw him, in City clothes, walking as 
he usually did; the second was quite different, 
clearer and more persistent, but in a different 
plane — a vision of something out of reach, and 
it was a vision of what had passed some hours 
before, at his house in another part of London 
four miles away, during the night of acute 
suffering only alleviated by morphia. 

"As to my own frame of mind, I was 
walking smartly, in an abstracted mood, bent 
on business, when my mind was suddenly 
switched off and was for the time entirely occu- 
pied by these impressions, though I know of 
no reason or suggestion that could account for 
them. 

"Moreover, though I totally reject mate- 
rialistic conceptions of Existence, my feelings 
and instincts, at the time and since, forbid 
me to believe either (1) that the whole experi- 



112 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

ence was a pure coincidence, or (2) that it was 
supernatural. On the contrary, the occurrence 
was as matter-of-fact as if I had found a friend 
taken ill in the street." 

Mr. Grey's careful account and thoughtful 
comments leave little that need be said. While 
mostly agreeing with his theory as to explana- 
tion, I should, however, say that in my view 
Mr. Vint's appearance was probably not in any 
way an asking for sympathy, nor, of course, 
was the manner of his appearance any indi- 
cation that he was still suffering. Bodily 
suffering ceases when the bodily functions cease. 
On the other hand, I believe, on other evidence, 
that for some little time after death the spirit 
remains to some extent in similar conditions, 
and is likely to manifest them if perceived 
by a psychic sensitive. For some time after 
death Mr. Vint, though no longer suffering bod- 
ily, would think of himself as he had been when 
going through those stressful hours, and Mr. 
Grey saw his thought of himself, so to speak. 
Probably this thought fluctuated; he would 
sometimes think of himself as he was before 
his short illness, and Mr. Grey's momentary 
vision of him thus was a perception of that 
thought. 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 113 

As to whether he meant to show himself 
to his old friend, of course we cannot say. I 
should doubt it, or at least I should say that 
it is not necessary to suppose so. In a sim- 
ilar case known to me the percipient heard 
loud knockings, without seeing anything, for a 
few hours after her brother's death by accident, 
some miles away, and she was frightened into 
serious illness. There is reason to believe that 
a released spirit does not always know what 
effect it is producing in the material world by 
the exercise of its new and changed powers; 
and the same applies to etherial effects, which 
is what "sights" are — adopting for the moment 
a physical view of the telepathic process. It 
is therefore likely enough that Mr. Vint did 
not will to appear, but, his thought being 
occupied with himself and the place of his 
old activities, that thought became momentarily 
perceptible to his friend, whose mind hap- 
pened to be in a passive and receptive con- 
dition, and, moreover, was in harmony with 
Mr. Vint's by sharing the same locality- 
thoughts. 

No doubt if Mr. Grey had had another 
vision of his friend a few days later he would 
have seen him younger and well-looking, cor- 



1 1 4 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

respondent with his progress, having shaken off 
the unpleasant old earth-conditions, as Captain 
Stuart progressively shook off his Gallipoli 
experiences, in the narrative by Mrs. Guthrie 
already quoted (pp. 29-44). 

Mr. Grey has had only one other psychical 
experience, and that was of a different order, 
perhaps even more interesting than the fore- 
going, for it was a precognition, and seems to 
involve a theory of the unreality of Time, to 
which I happen to incline. It does not prove 
this, of course — no single experience can — but 
it is one of many facts which suggest it. 

Mr. Grey says: 

"I was going to stay with friends, the 
father and mother of a young family, who all 
lived with my friend's father, to whom I was 
much attached. The old gentleman was away 
on a visit, and I was to occupy his bedroom. 

"As I drove up to the house I saw with 
a great shock that all the blinds were drawn 
down, and I was filled with apprehension. 
Then my eyes seemed to clear, and I saw that 
I was mistaken; the blinds were not down. 
At eight o'clock next morning my host met 
me with a telegram. His father, who had left 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 115 

home in good health, had died in the night. 
They were starting for Lancashire, and when 
I had helped them off I departed. As I 
looked hack every blind was down, just as I 
had seen the house on arriving the previous 



evening. 



"The thing sounds trivial, but on that single 
occasion I had a most depressing presentiment of 
death, which I have never forgotten, though it 
is thirty-six years ago." 

The next three cases have similar evidential 
quality, true information being conveyed by 
the visions. 

"Can you give me any explanation of the 
fact that, when anyone I care for very much 
is passing away, they call me with an audible 
voice? The first time this happened w r as some 
years ago. A young friend was ill a hundred 
miles away, but we had no idea that he was 
near death. One afternoon I was sitting quietly 
in the drawing-room with my mother when 
he came and stood beside me, saying: 'Good- 
bye, Fanny; I am going now.' I jumped 
up and said to my mother: 'Cyril has just 
passed away! Look at your watch.' She did, 
and the next morning we heard he had 



n6 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

gone, and at the very time I heard him 
speak. 

"A short time ago I was nursing a gentle- 
man at Hanley. Having left to go to Birming- 
ham, one night I heard him call my name with 
a loud voice. In this case it was the same: 
he had died at that time. 

"Now, within the last few weeks, the same 
thing occurs. I have had a brother living in 
Canada for several years. A few weeks ago I 
could not get him out of my thoughts; every 
night when I closed my eyes I could see him, 
and one night I awoke and could see a form 
in my room. Then I got really anxious, and sat 
down next morning to write a long letter to him. 
But, alas! before I could post it came the news 
of his death. 

"In each of these cases, which are abso- 
lutely true and happened exactly as described, 
the person seemed quite near to me; in fact, far 
more so than when living in the body. I have 
been reading an article in which it is stated 
that the spirit remains in the place where it has 
lived. I do not favour this thought at all. I 
like to think of it rather as being free, not con- 
fined to any given place." 

(Miss) Fanny Mill. 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 117 

Some of the incidents next to be described sug- 
gest both the survival and the clairvoyance of 
animals. This raises many puzzling questions, 
which I do not feel called on to attempt to 
answer. I quote what is told me, and the reader 
may invent his own theory. I do not see any 
a priori impossibility about animals possessing 
supernormal faculties, nor about their having 
a sort of soul which survives. On the other 
hand, it is clear that proof of these things would 
be difficult. 

"I am sending you a truthful account of my 
psychic experiences. You have only my bare 
word for the following, but it is true : 

"My husband one day brought home a large 
white bulldog, and told me he was going to 
make a pile of money by matching this dog 
with another fighter. He was a dear, affec- 
tionate dog (name Carlo), and I loved him. 
He won several fights, then lost; and my hus- 
band poisoned him and threw his body into 
the river. Some years after this, when I had 
almost forgotten poor Carlo, one night some- 
thing awoke me, and I saw a very peculiar 
light shining around where I lay. I sat up, 
and was greatly astonished to see Carlo, life- 
size, just as he used to look, sitting on the 



n8 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

rug beside the bed. He looked steadily at me 
for some time, then slowly faded away. The 
next morning my husband was arrested. Per- 
haps Carlo had come as a warning. (My 
husband is a bad man. I have left him 
and shall never return to him. He is in 
America. ) 

"My husband had a brother, Frank, who 
had been ill for over two years, but we had 
not heard that he was any worse. One night 
I had gone to bed, but could not sleep (my 
husband was out and did not come in till 
4 a.m.), and I turned on the light and was 
going to read awhile, when I saw Frank sit- 
ting on the chair by the bedside. He looked 
so natural I really thought he was there, and 
I said aloud: 'Why, Frank, how in the world 
did you get here?' And as I spoke he arose 
from the chair and went slowly down as if 
through the floor. I was greatly troubled at 
this vision, and wondered what it meant. 
When my husband came in I told him what I 
had seen. He laughed at me and said I had 
been dreaming. Well, next day he came home 
earlier than usual and said: 'Janet, I just met 
my mother; she had come to tell me Frank 
died last night.' 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 119 

"I see light — sometimes long flashes — with 
my eyes either closed or open. Before I feel 
the presence of a spirit I always see a light. 
When I feel them, as I often do very strongly, 
I always have the idea that, if my photograph 
could be taken at the time, another form would 
be seen in the picture." JaX£t Hqlt 

This is reminiscent of Mrs. Guthrie's sim- 
ilar seeing of a "light." There is some con- 
nexion, though I have not the least idea what, 
between a perception of light and these veridical 
psychic experiences, for the two are associated 
in accounts from people who know nothing of 
others' experiences and who are quite unaware 
of the frequent connexion. It may be that the 
spirit, in manifesting, is acting on the ether as 
we act on matter when we communicate with 
each other by speech, and that the first thing 
produced by such action is light, which is, of 
course, an etherial pulsation. 

Somewhat akin to the survival of animals is 
the clairvoyance of animals, of which I now 
give a few instances. 

"One July, about four or five years ago, 
I had been talking with a friend on the subject 



120 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

of the possibility of summoning to oneself the 
spirits of the beloved dead by concentrating 
one's thought on them. I had never tried to 
do this, because I feared it might not be happy 
for the spirit if it succeeded. However, I was 
tempted to try. On a July evening, therefore, 
when I was alone, I made the experiment. It 
was still daylight enough to see everything with 
perfect distinctness. I sat outside a window 
that opens down to the ground upon a terrace. 
The nearest tree is a chestnut, a dozen yards 
away — there is a good deal of open terrace. In 
front of me lay my dog, a large and powerful, 
highly intelligent animal, mainly sheep dog, 
with about a quarter setter in his composition. 
He loved to lie there in the summer evenings, 
and we always had great difficulty in persuad- 
ing him to come in at bedtime. I sat there 
and concentrated my thoughts on a specially 
dear friend I had lost some three years before. 
For one instant I felt a sensation — so brief as 
to be difficult to realize or describe — almost as 
if some touch came on my brain. I don't 
think I should have thought anything of it but 
for what happened next. Almost directly after- 
wards the dog became very much disturbed, 
in a way that was quite novel. He looked over 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 121 

his shoulder, then in front of him in the di- 
rection of the chestnut tree ; his head was drawn 
back as if he shrank from something — his eyes 
were full of fear. He looked as if he was 
watching something moving in the direction of 
the tree — his eyes seemed focussed on something 
near. All was, to my eyes and ears, absolutely 
still and quiet. If any animal or human being 
had been about the dog would certainly have 
rushed to bark at it, and also to growl, for he 
was most inconveniently determined to defend 
me from any danger, real or imaginary — par- 
ticularly under such circumstances, my being 
alone. But instead of doing this he rose, and, 
walking past me through the open window, 
flopped down very decidedly in the middle of 
the room. Certainly he saw something invisible 
to me — something that alarmed and . puzzled 
him." 

(Mrs.) R. E. Weldon. 

Perhaps Balaam's ass, after all, was not so 
unique a quadruped as one might think. The 
next case is similar to the last. 

"Last evening I was sitting in my drawing- 
room with three lady friends; one had a little 
pet dog with her, and about 10 p.m. the dog 



122 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

suddenly became excited and barked ever so — 
a most unusual thing. The dog could not 
be quiet. At last one friend, who is very 
psychical, said, 'Someone is here,' and went 
over to the direction where the dog kept look- 
ing, and sat down and closed her eyes. Pres- 
ently she said, T see someone; he has on a 
helmet and a red coat, and he wants some- 
thing.' Then suddenly this psychical friend 
went into what, I suppose, was a trance; she 
stuttered painfully and was quite unconscious, 
and said, 'Oh, it's dreadful. Help!' I said, 
'What is his name?' She kept saying, 'Owen.' 
I know no one of that name. She was greatly 
distressed for his (whoever he was) trouble and 
danger. When she said, 'Help!' I replied, 
'What can I do?' She said, 'Pray!' I then 
knelt and prayed aloud for us all and for him. 
She suddenly became calm and conscious, and 
did not know how she had been, though felt very 

upset." 

E. L. Priestley. 

The above occurred in a very old house in 
an ancient city. I think it was once a monas- 
tery or abbot's house. There seems no explana- 
tion of who the supposed spirit was, and there 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 123 

is no special tradition of any haunt. In the 
next case the dog recognized the spirit, but 
apparently did not see it exactly as the human 
percipient did. 

"I have had some unusual experiences, but 
will only trouble you with the following: 

"My father, General Barlow, died in Lon- 
don at midnight on July 21st, 1898. The fol- 
lowing night, at exactly the same time, I was 
lying awake (I had not been asleep) in a 
room opening into his; a large lamp was burn- 
ing brightly, and my poodle was lying asleep 
by my low bedside. Suddenly my father 
stood by my side; my dog started up, went 
straight to the communicating door, and stood 
watching for, I suppose, a few seconds, then 
came back, looked at me with a most curi- 
ous expression in his eyes, and lay down 
again. 

"In the following September I had moved 
to Sandhurst, to a place I had taken for my 
father and of which he was very fond. In the 
afternoon of a bright September day I was sit- 
ting in the hall, which is lighted by large north 
and south windows, and my dog again lying 
by my side. Again my father stood by me, 
and said, 'Well, here we are in the new home; 



124 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

I am glad.' Again my dog started up, did not 
look, at me as he would have done had I 
spoken, but went at once to the foot of the 
stairs where he used to watch for my father, and 
stood fixed at attention; then came back, looked 
at me in the same strange way, and lay down 
close at my feet. I have read of cases where 
animals showed fear, but my dog showed only 
recognition; had he not recognized my father 
he would at once have warned me, as he always 
did if he heard any unusual sound. (Had you 
known him you would have recognized a very 
decided 'personality.')" 

E. H. Barlow. 

In most cases of haunting the experience 
is confined to one or two people, and subjective 
hallucination plus expectancy may be alleged. 
But in one case sent to me the spectre was 
seen on eight occasions by seven individuals — 
two of them seeing it at the same time, un- 
known to each other. The venue was the 
house of a sceptical doctor, who is an unbe- 
liever no longer. I prefix to the narrative a 
more or less relevant and rather amusing letter 
which appeared in the Medical Press for May 
30th, 1917: 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 125 

"SPIRITUALISM AND INSANITY. 

"To the Editor of the Medical Press 
and Circular. 

"Sir, — In your issue of May 16th you did 
me the honour to print a letter by me on the 
subject named above. The following excerpts 
are from the concluding paragraph: 'For my- 
self I have been amazed by the revelation of 
the recent spread of so-called spiritualism, and 
believe this spread has been largely due to the 
influence of writings, some of which, unfortu- 
nately, have been issued by men belonging to 
the world of science . . .' 'The serious in- 
vestigation of psychic phenomena is one thing; 
the putting forth of "spooky" stories with 
either a real feeling or a pretence of solemnity 
is another, and one which it might be thought 
would have been avoided by writers of authority 
through the dread of the dangerous conse- 
quences which are so obviously to be feared.' 

"Since writing this I have had the oppor- 
tunity of reading an article on the subject by 
Sir Oliver Lodge in the April number of the 
Hibbert Journal. The Editor of the Journal 
has, it seems to me probable, given place to 
Sir Oliver Lodge's article with a certainty that 



126 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

it would be tackled later on by one or other 
of the distinguished writers who contribute to 
his Review. The article, so far as its language 
goes and where language can express extremely 
vague impressions, is admirably clear, but even 
a half-educated doctor's wife should be capable 
of putting her finger upon weak and fallacious 
statements which it contains. Sir Oliver Lodge 
believes in telepathy, and assumes that 'a 
strong emotion or other appropriate disturb- 
ance in the mind of one person may repeat 
itself more faintly in the perception of another 
previously related or specially qualified indi- 
vidual, even though separated by thousands of 
miles.' Sir Oliver does not attempt to explain 
how the mental processes in one individual can 
take some concrete form and travel through 
space half round the globe, there to influence 
the organism of some selected individual. When 
he has done this his hypothesis may perhaps 
find some solid foundation. From the hy- 
potheses of telepathy it is quite easy for Sir 
Oliver to advance to the hypothesis of 'dis- 
carnate minds,' and from this it is more easy 
to proceed to examine the powers of 'mediums,' 
having special qualities enabling them to act as 
intermediaries between inquirers and such dis- 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 127 

carnate minds. Through fixing attention mor- 
bidly on problems of this kind quite beyond 
their mental grasp, the simple, weak and credu- 
lous readers may be easily led through the 
paths of 'spiritualism' to a final goal within 
the portals of the lunatic asylum. Is it not 
imperative upon scientific men to confine dis- 
cussion of these questions to scientific societies 
and strictly scientific publications? 
"I am, sir, yours truly, 

"A Doctor's Wife. 
"May 2Uhr 

Being one of the simple and weak-minded 
individuals who are interested in "so-called 
spiritualism," I am naturally unequal to the 
intellectual task of deciding whether "a half- 
educated doctor's wife" means that she is the 
half-educated wife of a doctor or that she has 
the misfortune to be the wife of a half-educated 
doctor. If the former, we will not be so im- 
polite as to contradict her. We may also agree 
most heartily that it might be well if the sub- 
ject could be confined to scientific societies, for 
we might then hope to be spared the lucubra- 
tions of half-educated doctors' wives, who re- 
quire a wireless telegraph instrument to be dis- 



128 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

covered inside our skulls before they will be- 
lieve, however good the evidence, that telepathic 
communication is possible. One wonders 
whether the good lady believes that sugar 
sweetens her tea, for assuredly neither she nor 
anyone else fully understands the process of 
solution. 

The first letter, as it happened, called forth 
a sort of reply from a much more than half- 
educated doctor, who practises as a specialist 
in a certain large town. It was in his house 
that the eight-times-seen spectre appeared. 
Here is his letter in the Medical Press of May 
30th, 1917: 

"MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 

"To the Editor of the Medical Press 
and Circular. 

"Sir,— The letter of A Doctor's Wife' on 
' Spiritualism and Insanity' leads me to pen a 
short note to you on an allied subject. Spirit- 
ualism has for long been investigated by many 
and exploited by not a few. The medical pro- 
fession as a body have looked on from afar, 
although many of its members have been ardent 
workers in the search after the truths of the 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 129 

subject. One would like to see a committee 
formed of leading members of the profession 
who would scientifically investigate the subject. 

"Personally, I have been (note the past 
tense) a sceptic concerning spirits, ghosts, spir- 
itualism, table rapping, etc.; 'but a series 
of unaccountable incidents in my own house 
has caused me to ask myself if there be not 
something which possesses a basis of reality 
and fact. 

"In my own house a spectre of a female 
has been seen on eight occasions by seven in- 
dividuals during the past ten years. Only one 
of these persons who saw it was aware of its 
existence prior to seeing it. Once it was seen 
by two persons at the same time, though neither 
was cognizant of the other seeing it until they 
mutually related the incident to me next morn- 
ing. The last but one to see it was a sober- 
minded, level-headed nurse, who was on night 
duty during the illness of one of my children. 
She saw it standing at her side at 3.30 a.m., 
and, though much surprised, was neither 
alarmed nor perturbed. Noises occur in one 
room overhead in the early hours of the morn- 
ing, which, by their very intensity, remove all 
ghostly fears and make one inclined to laugh. 



130 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

The bells in the house I have seen violently 
ring, and for a long time attributed such to 
action of mice or rats, but investigation of the 
power required to put the bells in motion puts 
this explanation out of court. 

"I have slept for weeks in the haunted 
room, but with no success, and have racked my 
poor brains to try and explain the phenomena. 
One is told by spiritualists that the spectre is 
an earth-bound spirit, but how can a spirit 
make the noises like moving of furniture or 
ring bells in the middle of the day? Perhaps 
the latter have no connexion with the former, 
but that the spectre exists one can scarcely 
deny when the evidence of so many impartial 
observers supports it. 

"The greatest drawback one experiences is 
the futility of help which one receives from 
those who dub themselves spiritualists or me- 
diums. 

"Thanking you for allowing so much of your 
valuable space, 

"I am, yours truly , 

"Thecla W. Album." 

Now comes Dr. Album's full account as 
given to me previously to the writing of the 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 131 

Medical Press letter. As will be noted, there 
were further appearances between the two. 

"I am a medical man, specialist, and in 
my house during the past seven or eight years 
a 'ghost' (!), having the outline of a tall white 
female figure, has been seen on six occasions 
by five people. 

"(1) By my sister-in-law, one evening when 
playing the piano in our upstairs drawing- 
room; this was the first occasion, and it hap- 
pened about seven years ago. 

"(2) Next by a lady nurse, who also saw it 
in the same room, and she had seen it about 
a year earlier preceding her upstairs to her 
bedroom one evening, and on this occasion 
she addressed it, saying, 'Hullo! who's that?' 

"(3) A man and his wife occupied the house 
during our absence, and when I called one 
day the wife said: 'As I was going to bed 
last night I saw a tall white figure preced- 
ing me up the stairs.' As she said this, and 
before I could reply, her husband ejaculated: 
'Was that about 9.30 as we were going up- 
stairs to bed?' 'Yes,' replied the wife, on 
which the husband added: 'I saw it, too, but 
did not say anything to you for fear of fright- 
ening you.' 



132 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

"(4) On October 19th this year (1916) we 
had a night nurse on duty with our youngest, 
and had turned the drawing-room into a sick 
bay; and at 4 a.m., the nurse, who was intently 
reading a book by the fire, was startled to find 
standing by her right hand a tall female figure 
in white, who suddenly vanished. I asked her 
next day if she were frightened. 'Oh, no,' she 
replied, 'only very much surprised and startled.' 

"Now, none of these individuals — except the 
nurse — had ever heard from anyone of the ex- 
istence of this ghost, as we make a particular 
point of never mentioning it to anyone, nor 
have we even mentioned it to our present 
domestics. 

"There have been other occasions on which 
we fancy it has been seen: by a nurse attend- 
ing at the birth of my boy, also a lady visitor 
staying alone except for the maids, who got a 
big fright one night, but will not say what it 
was. 

"Again, when my boy was about two and 
a half to three years of age, he told us that 
'such a nice lady had kissed him' as he lay 
in his cot. 

"Neither I nor my wife have seen this 
creature, though we should greatly like to. 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 133 

"I personally believe I saw a 'ghost' once, 
some years ago, when walking along a broad 
highroad one winter afternoon in Shropshire. 
I saw ahead of me what I took to be a man and 
woman dressed in black, and after I had over- 
taken them I turned round to have a look at 
them, only to find that they had vanished. I 
went back and examined the place where I had 
first seen them, over and over again, but could 
find nothing which could be construed to make 
up the appearance I had seen." 

(Dr.) T. W. Album. 

The next case, though only one percipient 
was concerned, is exceptionally impressive be- 
cause the percipient is an exceptionally good 
witness. I cannot dismiss his story as being 
untrue or imaginative. His experience was 
real, and in my opinion his own interpretation 
is reasonable. 

"My mother died in Penzance at 9 o'clock 
on the night of Friday, November 4th, 1897. 
At that time I was living in Sydney, New 
South Wales. At 7 o'clock on the morning 
of Saturday, November 5th, 1897 — an hour 
synchronizing with 9 p.m. November 4th, Eng- 
lish time — my mother entered my room, ad- 



134 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

vanced towards my bed, stooped down and 

kissed me, and then slowly faded from sight. 

"This was not a dream; I had been awake 
for an hour or so, thinking, not of my mother, 
but of a trip to New Zealand on which I had 
arranged to start that afternoon. I was aware 
my mother was seriously ill: she had been 
suffering from cancer for over three years; but 
I had received no communication from home 
to lead me to imagine her end was near, and 
the first intimation I had from my family came 
to hand five weeks later by mail. But I knew 
my mother was 'dead' the moment she visited 
me. Since that memorable day I have often 
had communion with her. She is — not seems, 
but is — very near to me at times; I am con- 
scious of her presence, though there is no 
spiritual or other manifestation of her form; 
I can always visualize her features whenever I 
wish, without external aid; and her silent ad- 
monition, advice, guidance and sympathy have 
often been very helpful to me in periods of 
mental strain and doubt. 

"I have never sought to command her pres- 
ence; I never know when she will make it felt; 
and I am convinced that my consciousness in 
this respect is not influenced by imagination 



VISIONS OF THE DEAD 135 

or emotionalism. On the subject of her present 
state and environment I have never presumed 
to question her, nor has my mother ever volun- 
teered any communication. I am content to 
wait, in the full assurance that I shall meet my 
mother when I cross the borderline. 

"There is so general a disposition to treat 
with levity the subject of spiritual communion 
that I do not care to discuss it even with my 
intimates; it is too sacred a matter to be ex- 
posed to possible ridicule; but I am heartily 
glad to find eminent scientists approaching it 
with a sympathetic mind." 

J. A. Stephen Arnold. 

I have been given the exact addresses and 
other reinforcing details, but must suppress 
them because identities would be revealed. 



CHAPTER VI 



"meeting" cases 



ONE of the things I am most sure of is the 
fact that we are met at death by friends 
who have gone before. This has been proved to 
me by many curious pieces of evidence, some of 
which are described in my book, "Psychical In- 
vestigations." On several occasions a spirit 
has communicated, giving his name and many 
identifying details, and remarking that he was 
waiting about for a relative or friend who was 
dying. And in all these cases the people in 
question were quite unknown to the sensitive, 
even by name. 

If this fact of meeting is true, we ought to 
find contributory evidence of other kinds; and, 
as a matter of fact, we do. Dying people often 
see their waiting and welcoming friends. As 
Sir William Barrett says: "The evidence seems 
indisputable that, in some rare cases, just before 
death the veil is partly drawn aside and a 

136 



"MEETING" CASES 137 

glimpse of the loved ones who have passed over 
is given to the dying person." * 

A few such cases have been described to me, 
and I now quote them. 

"In May, 1892, I lost by death my idolized 
mother, from pneumonia following influenza. 
While she lay on her death-bed I had a severe 
attack of the same complaint, which, of course, 
I could not nurse properly. Five weeks later 
my dearly loved father died. He had always 
been most tenderly attached to my mother, and 
on his death-bed, where he had been lying for 
many hours in a state of coma, he suddenly 
sat up, and, with flashing eyes, he stretched out 
his hands and cried with a clear voice, 'Mother!' 
— the name by which he always called her. All 
the previous day, while he was perfectly con- 
scious, he waved me impatiently away when I 
went to one side of the bed, as if I was ob- 
structing his view of something he loved to see, 
though he never said what it was. Could it 
be that she was there and he saw her? I could 
not grieve much at his death, for joy at the 
thought of their reunion." 

H. M. MURGATROYD. 

1K On the Threshold of the Unseen," p. 160. 



138 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

The following case has a curious "physical- 
phenomena" incident, which is quite in line 
with similar experiences of a friend of mine, a 
materialist, who rejoices (or sorrows) in a wife 
possessing psychic faculties of various kinds. 

"A male friend died in November, 1909. The 
next day, I and my little daughter being alone, 
caretakers of an empty house, we heard very 
heavy and slow (seemingly stiff) footsteps de- 
scending the stairs, but nothing was to be seen. 
It was broad daylight. So long as I stayed 
there I heard very loud and distinct raps about 
my room. 

"When my husband lay dying he asked me 
in an awed tone if I saw the man who had 
been at his bedside. I replied, 'No, I had seen 
no one.' He drew his last faint breath with 
me only in the room, and after it had ceased a 
sudden smile came over his face. 

"As regards the footsteps on the stairs, a 
natural explanation would be that noises echo 
through semi-detached empty houses, yet, 
though it might therefore have been a workman 
next door, etc., we never once heard again any- 
thing at all similar, though we stayed there four 
months longer. My little girl was in our living- 
room on the first floor, then came the drawing- 



"MEETING" CASES 139 

room on the ground floor; I was in the base- 
ment back-kitchen doing some washing, with 
my back to the door, facing the window. I 
heard the steps descending slowly, as it were, 
from our floor upstairs (this friend was particu- 
larly attached to my little daughter) ; when they 
reached the basement flight they were silent — 
another mode of motion may have been used — 
and I next heard them on the flat floor walk- 
ing in the front kitchen, where all my boxes 
were. Somehow the slow, heavy, stiff sort of 
movement, directly I heard it, made me think 
at once of the dead, though only noon and a 
bright day; and as they came nearer I turned 
round and faced the door. Nothing appeared. 
I felt too scared to remain down there alone, 
but, before going up, went in the front room to 
make sure it was no human intruder. The room 
was perfectly empty and filled with sunshine. 
I then went upstairs, and just as I got near 
our first floor my little daughter ran out say- 
ing, 'Oh, Mummy, why have you been making 
such a noise coming upstairs? You frightened 
me.' This happened in November, 1909, but 
my memory is very good, and my daughter 
could corroborate it, though now she scoffs 
at such things, having turned Roman Catholic, 



140 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

and says that the faces she used to see, and 
which I see now (the last eight years), are only 
imagination. You know the Romanist is not 
allowed to believe in any visions except those of 
'Our Lady' and Roman 'saints.' All others are 
under a ban." 

A. G. Pawson. 

The next case was kindly sent me by Miss 
H. A. Dallas. 1 The percipient's mother is a 
friend of hers, and is an excellent witness. 

"My friend Mrs. Sunmore related the fol- 
lowing to me. She had lost many children, 
and one of her daughters was, at the time re- 
ferred to, fading gradually away. A married 
daughter had recently died just after the birth 
of a baby, who had not survived her long. The 
married daughter I will designate as 'Violet,' 
the girl who was dying as 'Bertha' (she had 
been told of the death of 'Violet' and her 
baby) . As Bertha lay dying she began to talk 
to her brothers and sisters who had died already, 
said my friend. 

"'Do you mean that she talked of them?' 
I asked. 

1 Author of several excellent books on psychical research, e.g., 
"Mors Janua Vita?," "Across the Barrier," and "Objections to 
Spiritualism Answered." 



"MEETING" CASES 141 

"'No,' she replied, 'she talked to them; 
and then she suddenly exclaimed, "Oh!" and 
"Violet and the baby!" I gave a little groan, 
but Bertha said, "Mother, you ought to be de- 
lighted!"' 

"My friend was convinced that Bertha saw 
and talked with the brothers and sisters who 
had come to welcome her into their new life. 

"You can use this or not, as you like. Per- 
haps it is not as striking a case as some others — ■ 
in which the death was not known to the per- 
cipient normally." 

H. A. Dallas. 

The next narrative is similar and includes a 
"clairvoyance of animals" incident. 

"When I was in London last I went to see 
an old friend who had lately lost her mother, 
and she told me that her mother had had such 
a great dread of death (what we call death), 
and had said she wished her daughters could go 
with her. But a day or two before her passing, 
when my friend was in the room, she sud- 
denly called her, with a look of great surprise 
and happiness on her face, and said, 'Oh, 
look! do you see them?' and pointed out beyond 
the foot of her bed. And from then onwards 



i 4 2 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

all fear left her. My friend is a peculiarly 
matter-of-fact, level-headed woman, and I am 
sure she was convinced that her mother did see 
what she could not see. I have myself seen a 
dog persistently watch an apparently empty 
chair, as if watching someone sitting in it. This 
happened many times. But the dog never 
seemed the least afraid. And if the Visitant' 
were the spirit I think probable, this would be 
so, as there was in his character a very keen 
sympathy with all the 'creatures' and nature in 
general." 

^Miss) M. E. Poole. 



CHAPTER VII 

METETHERIAL IMPRINTS 

IT was thought by F. W. H. Myers that, when 
a particularly stressful and emotional event 
occurs, some impression is made on the etherial 
or "met etherial" environment, and that this 
persists and can be perceived, when conditions 
are favourable, by people with psychical sensi- 
tiveness, and that this may account for some 
stories of re-enacted murder scenes and other 
haunts, in which it seems unreasonable to sup- 
pose that the original actors are still concerned 
— for, however it may be with the murderer, 
we see no reason for his innocent victim to be 
re-enacting the painful scene. This "imprint" 
theory fits in with the facts observed in con- 
nexion with the use of rapport-objects in 
mediumship, though the exact modus of the 
phenomenon is still , unknown ; it may be that 
the rapport-object puts the medium in tele- 
pathic touch with its owner, and that the place 

143 



144 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

of a murder-scene puts a sensitive in telepathic 
touch with the mind of the murderer — dead or 
alive — who, as punishment, is still remorse- 
fully re-acting his deed. We do not know, 
but the facts certainly indicate that super- 
normal perception of unknown facts is pos- 
sible by reason of a sensitive being in a certain 
place. 

There is a curious story of this sort in 
George Fox's "Journal," though it may be 
that Fox had known the facts and had forgotten 
them, his "subliminal" thus being the real 
source : 

"As I was walking along," says he, "with 
several friends, I lifted up my head, and I saw 
three steeple-houses, and they struck at my life. 
I asked them what place that was, and they 
said Lichfield. Immediately the word of the 
Lord came to me, that I must go thither. . . . 
Then I walked on about a mile, and as soon as 
I was within the city the word of the Lord 
came to me again, saying, 'Cry, Woe unto the 
bloody city of Lichfield.' So I went up and 
down the streets, crying with a loud voice, 
'Woe to the bloody city of Lichfield.' It being 
market day, I went into the market-place, and 
to and fro in the several parts of it, and made 



METETHERIAL IMPRINTS 145 

stands, crying as before, 'Woe to the bloody 
city of Lichfield.' And no one laid hands on 
me; but, as I went thus crying through the 
streets, there seemed to me to be a channel 
of blood running down the streets, and the 
market-place appeared like a pool of blood. 
After this a deep consideration came upon me: 
why, or for what reason, I should be sent to cry 
against that city, and call it the bloody city. 
For though the Parliament had the Minster one 
while, and the King another, and much blood 
had been shed in the town during the wars be- 
tween them, yet that was no more than had 
befallen many other places. But afterwards I 
came to understand that in the Emperor 
Diocletian's time a thousand Christians were 
martyred in Lichfield. So I was to go, with- 
out my shoes, through the channel of their 
blood and into the pool of their blood in the 
market-place, that I might raise up the me- 
morial of the blood of those martyrs which had 
been shed above a thousand years before." 
("Journal," p. 57.) 

There is a rather similar case in Herodotus 
("History," I. chapter clxvii.), in which, how- 
ever, the place seemed to cause only twitch- 
ing, as with dowsers when water-divining, but 



146 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

apparently causing it in animals as well as in 
human beings: 

"The Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians, who 
had got into their hands many more than the 
Phocaeans from among the crews of the forty 
vessels that were destroyed, landed their captives 
upon the coast after the fight, and stoned them 
all to death. Afterwards, when sheep, or oxen, 
or even men of the district of Agylla passed by 
the spot where the murdered Phocaeans lay 3 
their bodies became distorted, or they were 
seized with palsy, or they lost the use of some 
of their limbs.,' 5 

But sometimes the locality seems to yield 
not only an influence but also impressions con- 
veying definite information. Sir A. Conan 
Doyle once told a story of a curious experience 
of Ms own, which is of this type. 

Walking over the Gemmi Pass, in Switzer- 
land, he was struck with the suitability of the 
lonely Schwarenbach Inn for a story of mystery 
and crime. He proceeded to invent one. He 
pictured the murder of a son by his own father, 
the needy innkeeper, who had resolved to kill 
and rob the first lonely stranger, and who did 
not recognize his victim till too late. Arrived 
at the hotel at Leukerbad, Sir Arthur picked up 



METETHERIAL IMPRINTS 147 

a volume of Maupassant's short stories, and 
found that not only had the French author been 
to the Schwarenbach before him, but that he 
had written a story about it practically identical 
with the one he had just been concocting! And, 
as Mr. Francis Gribble has pointed out, 1 neither 
novelist was imagining anything new, for their 
plot is the plot of Werner's tragedy, "The 
Twenty-fourth of February," which is based on 
a real occurrence at the Schwarenbach Inn. 
The thing had actually happened there! 

Perhaps Maupassant and Sir Arthur had 
read and forgotten Werner's tragedy but had 
retained it subliminally. That is the orthodox 
psychical-research hypothesis, and may be the 
true explanation of this curious bit of history. 
But it is also possible that the more unorthodox 
and more picturesque theory may be the true 
one. A tragedy did take place at the Schwaren- 
bach Inn; the psychical reverberation of the 
event still lingered there; the delicate sensi- 
tivity of two literary artists picked up these 
vibrations, and their minds reconstructed the 
scenes and circumstances of the tragedy. If 
they had had still more of the psychic faculty — 

1 "Travel and Exploration," August, 1910: "Some Alpine 
Passes." 



148 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

had been genuine "sensitives" — they might 

have actually seen the murder as a hallucinatory 

vision. 

But these cases merge into actual com- 
munication from discarnate minds, and it is 
difficult to decide where to draw the line between 
a haunt due to impressions on the metetherial 
environment, and one due to the actual agency 
of some discarnate person. There is probably 
a continuous gradation from no-consciousness to 
full consciousness at the spot; for in many 
haunts and apparitions there is an aimlessness 
about the proceedings which seems to indicate 
that the spirit it not quite all there. But in the 
next original case to be quoted there was a 
definite enough aim, and it seems reasonable to 
suppose that the old gentleman was there. The 
narrative is so orthodox a ghost story that I was 
naturally disinclined to take it seriously; but 
further correspondence with the people con- 
cerned has resulted in a weakening of my 
scepticism. Unfortunately, the case is remote 
in time, and cannot be made very evidential. 

"I was sitting one night, alone, trimming 
a hat for myself for Sunday wear, and was 
hurrying to get it done before twelve o'clock, as 



METETHERIAL IMPRINTS 149 

it was Saturday night. As the clock struck 
twelve the front door opened, then the parlour 
door, and a man entered and sat down in a chair 
opposite to me. He was rather short, very thin, 
dressed in black, extremely pale face, and hands 
with very long and thin fingers. He had a high 
silk hat on his head, and in one hand he held an 
old-fashioned, large silver snuff-box. He gazed 
across at me and said three times, slowly and 
distinctly, 'I've come tc tell you.' He then 
vanished, and I noted that the door was shut as 
before. 

"All the family were out at the time. When 
they returned I told them — very much terrified 
— what I had seen. No one believed me, and 
they treated the affair with ridicule or indiffer- 
ence. 

"About two years afterwards a friend of 
the family — a Mr. Drake — was there on a visit, 
and my mother, having no spare room, made up 
a bed for him on the sofa in the room downstairs 
where I had seen the apparition. Precisely at 
twelve o'clock he rushed upstairs into the first 
bedroom he came to, in a state of great fright, 
and told a story exactly like what I have just 
recounted of my own experience. 

"This impressed my parents and led them 



150 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

to attach importance to my statements of two 
years before. Consequently they at once de- 
cided to leave the house. 

"Mr. Drake was then about thirty years 
of age. He had not been told anything about 
my previous vision. The house had no reputa- 
tion of being haunted. 

"A few years after we left, the house was 
pulled down. Underneath it — I think under- 
neath the floor of the room in which the appari- 
tion was seen — was found a skeleton which cor- 
responded to the form of the man seen by Mr. 
Drake and myself. Close to the skeleton was 
the brim of a high silk hat, and in one hand 
was a silver snuff-box which was found to con- 
tain certain deeds. 

"My age at the time was thirteen. I was 
not timid or nervous, but was, on the contrary, 
an average girl, full of fun; and my mind at the 
time was occupied in thinking about going out 
to various places of amusement and enjoying 
myself. I was not thinking of ghosts or any- 
thing of the kind." 

I have been informed of the exact location 
of the house in question, which was in a busy 
Northern manufacturing town. I have also 
received confirmation from the narrator's sister. 



METETHERIAL IMPRINTS 151 

Unfortunately, I have been unable to obtain 
definite confirmation from the second percipient, 
Mr. Drake. I have communicated with him, 
and he does not deny that the thing happened, 
but he declines to say anything about it. I 
suspect that it is a matter of religious scruples. 
He is a Roman Catholic, and probably his 
director tells him that it was the devil and that 
he had better not talk about it. 

There is a story very similar to the foregoing 
in a letter of Pliny the Younger — a clever and 
accomplished lawyer of the first century of our 
era, and a man who usually avoids these sub- 
jects in his writings, inclining generally to the 
fashionable non-religiousness of his cultivated 
contemporaries. 

He relates that there was a haunted house 
at Athens which no one would live in because 
of the terrific noises at night, accompanied by 
the apparition of an old man with fetters on 
his hands and feet. At length, however, the 
philosopher Athenodorus came to Athens, and 
evidently being something of a psychical re- 
searcher — or, like Hadrian, curiositatum om- 
nium eocplorator (a searcher-out of all strange 
things), as Tertullian called him, — he boldly 



152 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

took the house, attracted rather than repelled 
by its evil repute. On the first evening in his 
new abode he settled to his reading and writing, 
concentrating his mind on his work in order 
that expectancy should not stimulate his im- 
agination to idle terrors. But the noises began, 
nevertheless. Athenodorus went on reading. 
The noises increased and seemed to reach the 
threshold of his chamber. He looked behind 
him and saw the apparition, which made signs 
to him, apparently beckoning. 

Athenodorus rather unkindly ignored the 
poor spectre, and turned again to his books. 
But the old man came and stood over him, 
shaking his fettered hands — perhaps making 
mesmeric passes. The philosopher gave in, got 
a light, and followed the figure, which led him 
to a spot in the courtyard and then vanished. 
Athenodorus marked the place, and next day 
had it dug up. Human bones were found with 
fetters on them. These were properly buried 
elsewhere, and the haunting ceased. 

Pliny says: "I believe the word of those 
who affirm all this." And Pliny knew what 
constitutes evidence, being an advocate; so it 
seems likely that he had some fairly good testi- 
mony. Probably he was influenced to some 



METETHERIAL IMPRINTS 153 

extent by two incidents which came within his 
own knowledge — two of his men-servants, one 
of them "by no means illiterate," on different 
occasions dreaming of visitants cutting their 
(the servants') hair, and waking to find them- 
selves shorn and the hair around them on the 
floor. Pliny read an omen of safety into this. 
Many of his friends had suffered judicial mur- 
der under the tyranny of Domitian, and, as it 
turned out, an accusation was lodged against 
Pliny himself, and only Domitian's death saved 
him. "It may therefore be conjectured," he 
says, "since it is customary for persons under 
any public accusation to let their hair grow, this 
cutting off the hair of my servants was a sign I 
should escape the imminent danger that threat- 
ened me." 1 

However, without further details w T e can- 
not rely much on a story of that kind. 
Perhaps the slaves had an attack of somnam- 
bulistic barber-ism! 

x "The Letters of Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus," Book 7, 
Letter 27 (to Sura), in which the Athenodorus ghost story also 
is told. Lucian ridicules a rather similar tale, but places it in 
Corinth. 



CHAPTER VIII 

COMMUNICATION BY MOTOR RESPONSE 

THUS far we have been dealing mostly with 
so-called "sensory automatisms" of the 
spontaneous type; but the experiences of non- 
professional sensitives are, of course, not con- 
fined to these. They include all the phenomena, 
such as automatic writing, and speech or writing 
in trance, which are observed in the despised 
race of mediums. But I do not much like the 
word automatic, for it seems to prejudge the 
question and to assume that the person is 
"doing it himself." As regards the physical 
process, he certainly is, for it is his muscles 
that are causing movement of pencil or vocal 
organs; but it is by no means certain that it is 
entirely his own mind that is determining the 
action of the muscles. Decision on that point 
must depend mainly on the character of the 
product. I append a good case of writing, from 
a retired Army captain, in which the agency 

154 



MOTOR RESPONSE 155 

seems to have been external to the writer's 
mind: 

"My father was scientist, priest, and poet, 
a man who concealed an iron will behind the 
most gentle and Christ-like of personalities, and 
he was more than a brother to me. I, who had 
traced Comparative Religions back through Isis 
and Osiris, the Medic and Persian, the Hindoo 
and Chinese, to their apparent sources in 
Yucatan, had become thoroughly agnostic 
towards anything Catholic, while retaining a 
firm belief in a First Cause and Spirit. This 
was a grief to him, though he was deep and 
broad and tender enough to appreciate the fact 
that 'there lives more faith in honest doubt' 
than in all the creeds. 

"A week after my father's funeral I was 
writing a business letter, when something 
seemed to intervene between my hand and the 
motor centres of my brain, and the hand wrote 
at an amazing rate a letter, signed with my 
father's signature and purporting to come from 
him. I was upset, and my right side and arm 
became cold and numb. For a year after this 
letters came frequently, and always at unex- 
pected times. I never knew what they con- 
tained until I examined them with a magnify- 



156 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

ing glass: they were very microscopic. And 
they contained a vast amount of matter with 
which it was impossible for me to be acquainted. 
Their theology was unorthodox; the place 
which he inhabited was strangely real; he 
seemed to be looking in at me in prison: I was 
in semi-darkness behind prison bars. 'You are 
in the dream. I am in the reality.' 'I seem 
to speak to you in a dream.' 'I am a link in 
the great chain that binds Earth to Heaven. 
Laus Deo, what more could sinful man desire?' 
etc. 

"Unknown to me, my mother, who was 
staying some sixty miles away, lost her pet dog, 
which my father had given her. The same 
night I had a letter from him condoling with 
her, and stating that the .dog was now with 
him. 'All things which love us and are neces- 
sary to our happiness in the world are with us 
here.' A most sacred secret, known to no one 
but my father and mother, concerning a matter 
which occurred years before I was born, was 
afterwards told me in the script, with the com- 
ment: 'Tell your mother this, and she will 
know that it is I, your father, who am writing.' 
My mother had been unable to accept the pos- 
sibility up to now, but when I told her this 



MOTOR RESPONSE 157 

she collapsed and fainted. From that moment 
the letters became her greatest comfort, for 
they were lovers during the forty years of their 
married life, and his death almost broke her 
heart. 

"As for myself, I am as convinced that my 
father, in his original personality, still exists, 
as if he were simply in his study with the door 
shut. He is no more dead than he would be 
were he living in America. 

"I have compared the diction and vocabu- 
lary of these letters with those employed in my 
own writing — I am not unknown as a magazine 
contributor — and I find no points of similarity 
between the two. 

"My father imagined himself unknown be- 
yond the confines of his country parish, yet I 
have discovered that he was better known in 
the large town of B than many of its resi- 
dent clergy. Men of the world have said to 
me: 'If there ever was a Christ-like man it 
was your father.' Old ladies, who criticized his 
'scientific and chemical' sermons, nevertheless 
adored him; and yet he wrote, 'With great 
difficulty have I attained the privilege' (of 
writing to me). 'Take care that you on your 
side are not unworthy.' 



158 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

"I have never come up against any of the 
astonishing phenomena with which the spiritual- 
ists seem so familiar, such as levitation, the 
appearance in the flesh of the departed, etc, 
although on a certain Christmas night I saw 
most vividly my father standing behind my 
mother's chair. I tried to touch him, but an 
impenetrable wall of ice seemed to surround 
him, and my hand was numb and practically 
frozen for nearly half an hour afterwards." 

(Capt.) J. Burton. 

There seems to be more in this phenomenon 
of coldness — so frequently noticed in many 
kinds of sittings — than can be accounted for on 
any theory of mere hallucination. It is ex- 
perienced by people who are not expecting it 
and who know nothing of its frequent occur- 
rence. Suggestion, therefore, seems an in- 
adequate explanation. And there seems no a 
priori reason to expect such a phenomenon. 
The facts point to there being something really 
there — some change in the portion of space out 
there, or in the matter or ether occupying it. 
A thermometer ought to settle it, but when 
these things happen spontaneously and unex- 
pectedly we can forgive the percipient if he 



MOTOR RESPONSE 159 

does not happen to think of sending for a 
thermometer until too late. There is a case on 
record where a young man saw a ghost and 
said, "Hello, here's an apparition! Let's 
study it." But he was an exceptional young 
man, evidently nurtured on the Proceedings 
of the Society for Psychical Research. Ordi- 
nary people will show less presence of mind. 
But it is much to be desired that thermometric 
tests should be made when the "cold wind" is 
felt at experimental sittings. 

[Capt. Burton's account continued.] 

"Quite early in the history of the script I 
had a very fragmentary communication, from 
which I gathered that 'the letters which 
Arthur [my clergyman brother] wants were 
in my drawer of drawers in the bureau — only 
you cannot find them . . . under an ornament 
on my dressing-room mantelpiece. The key 
will open my escritoire ... an important docu- 
ment and the letters. . . . You had better go 

to R ' (nineteen miles away). I put the 

script in an envelope and sent it to my brother, 
who was staying there. It turned out that he 

had been in O , going through my father's 

financial concerns, and had come home much 



160 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

worried by his inability to find certain state- 
ments of small investments, without the posses- 
sion of which things were at a standstill. On 
receiving my letter he proceeded upstairs, found 
three keys under an ornament on the mantel- 
piece, and one of them opened the escritoire. 
With a key found there he opened the bureau, 
and after a search discovered a concealed 
drawer, divided into compartments (the 'drawer 
of drawers'), and there lay a parcel tied with 
red tape. The first envelope was marked 
'Important document to be opened after my 
decease/ and beneath this were the letters 
wanted by my brother. 

"Now, we none of us were familiar with my 
father's study — even my mother was only al- 
lowed in on sufferance as a special favour. I 
had never seen his bureau open, and but for 
this communication it is hardly probable that 
those letters would have been recovered." 

The foregoing narrative seems to be specially 
evidential of the agency of a mind no longer 
incarnate, for apparently no "living" person 
knew the facts. The latent-telepathy hypoth- 
esis, according to which such things are re- 
ceived subconsciously during the lifetime of the 



MOTOR RESPONSE 161 

person who knew the facts, and reproduced 
after his death as "messages" from him, is a 
reasonably possible explanation in some cases, 
and is not impossible in this case; but, for my 
own part, I incline to a spiritistic theory. 

The next experience described by Captain 
Burton is interesting as confirming the feeling 
of extraordinary well-ness which seems to follow 
the sloughing of the body at death. In char- 
acter it belongs with the narratives in an earlier 
chapter, but, on the whole, it seemed best to 
give the complete narrative without any split- 
ting up. 

"I may say that two years before my 
father's death I had post-influenzal heart- 
failure, and on one memorable night I found 
myself standing at the foot of my bed, looking 
at myself and the doctor, and feeling very well 
and bright, though extremely puzzled at the 
situation. Then suddenly I felt myself dragged 
violently over the bed-rail, where I floated above 
myself; following which came a tremendous 
crash, then the doctor's voice saying, *I believe 
he is coming round.' Afterwards the doctor 
told me he never expected me to become con- 
scious again, and he considered me indeed abso- 
lutely dead for some time." 



162 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

All this was before the present war, so it 
must not be hastily surmised that Captain 
Burton had been wounded and was suffering 
from hallucinations. Moreover, his account is 
confirmed by friends and relatives. Of the 
present struggle he remarks: 

"In the early stages of the war I took up 
the sword I had placed on my wall many years 
ago, and had an opportunity of learning some- 
thing of the splendid material of which the 
new armies are composed. I think, too, that 
my own psychic experiences proved a comfort 
and support to the splendid boys of my regi- 
ment, most of whom are now, alas, on the 'other 
side.' " 

After this case of "amateur" supernormal 
writing the following case of an amateur trance 
— so to speak — may be a suitable sequel. 

"My father had a boon companion in his 
younger days named Henry Powell. They were 
in the Civil War together, and both returned to 

their home in at its close. My father's 

name was William M. Farrar (he was a noted 
physician and surgeon here), but Powell always 
called him Archie as a nickname, for some rea- 
son or other. They discussed the future state 



MOTOR RESPONSE 163 

often, and each promised that, if it were possible 
to return, the one that passed first would cer- 
tainly do so. 

"I have a large picture of Powell in uniform, 
showing a very heavy drooping moustache. My 
father spoke occasionally of Powell in after 
years, and alluded to his peculiar manner of 
stroking his moustache: instead of using the 
index finger and a thumb he would form a letter 
'V of the first two fingers, place them to his 
lips, and spread them out. My father was not 
a believer in psychic things, but became so in 
his last few years. 

"Powell died suddenly on the day of my 
birth in 1866. Thirty-one years passed without 
a sign of his continued existence, when one day 
a lady patient was with my father in his office 
(a woman under thirty, from another State), 
and she sank into a trance condition which my 
father could not understand. Then she looked 
up, spread her fingers across her lips, smiled, 
and said, 'Hello, Archie!' That was all. My 
father discussed it with me and I gave my 
views, and he was interested. 

"No further news of Powell came until 1913. 
I was at a sitting for the direct voice, when 
one, purporting to be Powell's, said, 'Give my 



164 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

love to Archie.' I asked, 'Did you give him a 
test some years ago?' 'Yes; but I could only 
say, "Hello, Archie!" I said, 'And the stroke 
of the moustache?' 'Yes; but that was for 
effect. I have no moustache, you know.' 'I 
didn't know that,' I said. 'Ask Archie; he will 
tell you. We are getting ready for him, and he 
will join us soon.' 

"I asked my father about Powell's mous- 
tache, and he said he had shaved it off two days 
before his death, and he (my father) well re- 
membered the unusualness of his appearance in 
his coffin, with the white upper lip. That was 
nearly fifty years before the date of my sitting; 
and no one present at the sitting had known 
Powell or had any knowledge of him except 
myself; and I had no recollection of his having 
shaved his upper lip, even if I had ever known it. 

"My father died six months later." 

Herbert Farrar. 

I am the more able to accept the above as at 
least a possible occurrence in consequence of my 
own acquaintance with a series of similar cases. 
I know a young lady who is subject to short 
trances in which she often writes — or occasion- 
ally speaks — evidential matter claiming to come 



MOTOR RESPONSE 165 

from certain deceased persons whom she never 
knew in life. She is not a Spiritualist, has never 
been to a Spiritualist meeting, has never seen 
a medium, and has little or no acquaintance with 
the literature of the subject. She does not give 
"sittings" or receive any fee, but rather rights 
the influence, being somewhat unwilling to give 
up control. It usually comes on in the presence 
of a Mrs. Firth — also well known to me — whose 
father purports to be the usual control. 

I cannot give details, because they are pri- 
vate; but I know them, and I admit that to 
me they are conclusive. The conditions have 
been rather specially good, for Miss Nairne (the 
sensitive) did not become acquainted with Mrs. 
Firth until two years ago, and the latter's 
relatives are at a distance and mostly even now 
unknown to Miss Nairne. Yet Mrs. Firth's 
father gives messages not only concerning 
matters known to Mrs. Firth, but also concern- 
ing matters affecting his widow and his other 
children which Mrs. Firth and Miss Nairne 
know nothing of; e.g., informing her of his 
widow's illness, and desiring Mrs. Firth to go 
to her at once — instructions which were con- 
firmed by a telegram from her old home soon 
afterwards. 



166 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

If Miss Nairne gives way to the influence 
when it comes, a short but deep trance ensues, 
and her hand "writes it off" — i.e., the pressure 
or tension is relieved — and she awakes feeling 
well and happy. If, on the other hand, she 
resists, she feels ill, and sometimes has ultimately 
to succumb to a longer trance which leaves her 
exhausted. This happened rather alarmingly 
on one occasion, and Mrs. Firth remonstrated 
with the controls, who, however, said they were 
not responsible. They say that Miss Nairne 
has "a floating spirit," readily detachable; and 
that they often find her on their plane when no 
one has called her or tried to communicate 
through her body. And indeed she seems to 
spend most of her nights over there, for she can 
bring back the recollection of where and with 
whom she has been, and these are often evi- 
dential. Mrs. Firth's father and brother are 
Miss Nairne's closest friends on the other side — 
though she never knew them on this — and they 
often give messages to her for Mrs. Firth, 
which are handed on next day and found to 
be appropriate. 



CHAPTER IX 

A PERHAPS INCREDIBLE STORY 

THE fact that psychical experiences are rela- 
tively uncommon is no proof that they are 
negligible. Eclipses are uncommon, and they 
cannot be produced to order; but they can be 
carefully observed and dated when they occur, 
and this process has enabled us to understand 
them. So with earthquakes and volcanic erup- 
tions and many other things. And it is not 
only the great and spectacular events that are 
important; very often the apparently trivial 
incident has led to great discovery. The huge 
electrical industries of to-day may be traced 
back to Benjamin Franklin's kite and to the 
frog's leg (I hope the story is not mythical, as 
some say) which twitched when in contact with 
two metals, earning Galvani the jeering title of 
"the frogs' dancing-master." The harnessing 
of steam began when Watt noticed the kettle- 
lid jumping. And the fall of an apple is alleged 

to have suggested to Newton the explanation 

167 



168 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

of lunar and planetary motion. To a truly 
scientific mind no fact is unimportant. All are 
to be studied, and surface appearances may be 
deceitful; the little things may turn out great 
in their consequences. Patient study, without 
prejudice, is the right course. 

But I am ready to admit cheerfully that it is 
difficult to keep a really open mind in face of 
some alleged happenings. Events differ in 
credibility according as they conform to types 
already regarded as admissible. I accept Mr. 
Grey's narrative (pp. 106-15), partly because of 
his mental build and, so to speak, solidity, and 
partly because his experience fits in with other 
even more evidential incidents. But the next 
case is different, and I hardly know what to 
think about it. The lady is intellectual, edu- 
cated, of high character, and sane enough so far 
as one can judge; yet ... to quote Plutarch, 
the narrative "may perhaps not so much take 
and delight the reader with its novelty and 
curiosity as offend him by its extravagance." * 
On the other hand, if I tell the tale I can at 
least shelter myself behind Herodotus, who, 
even when expressing his own disbelief, con- 
sidered it his duty "faithfully to record the 

1 "Lives," i., p. 37 (Everyman ed.). 



A PERHAPS INCREDIBLE STORY 169 

traditions of the several nations"; 1 and it has 
turned out in some cases that his disbelief was 
wrong and the tale was right. So I will not err 
on the side of a timorous suppression. 

"To make my dreams intelligible to you I 
shall have to go into a little biographical detail. 
My father was a Wesleyan minister very much 
beloved, especially amongst the poor and sorrow- 
ful. In those days Wesleyan ministers were 
very poor, having a bare living provided for 
them. I was the eldest daughter, and my 
parents gave me the best education that they 
could, with the understanding that I should help 
to educate the younger children. At twenty- 
three I became the head of a large private school 
for girls. I was very happy in my work, for I 
loved it dearly, and between my girls and myself 
there was a strong friendship. I always felt 
that the formation of character was even more 
important than intellectual training, and I had 
discovered for myself many of the modern im- 
provements in education, and put them in prac- 
tice, long before they were generally adopted. 
It was hard work, because my own education 
was only that of an ordinary girls' school, and 

^'History," i., p. 177 (Everyman ed.). 



i7o MAN IS A SPIRIT 

I had to supplement it by constant study to 
keep myself up to date. I generally worked 
till late at night, using the drawing-room as 
my study. 

"One night I was sitting there correcting 
some papers, all the rest of the household having 
gone to bed, when there came a very gentle 
ring at the front-door bell. Wondering who 
could be calling at such a late hour, I opened 
the door and admitted a gentleman whose name 
I did not catch. I took him into the drawing- 
room and seated him by the fire, taking a seat 
opposite him, where I could see his face. He 
was well dressed, in black, and I thought he had 
probably come about placing a pupil with me. 
We began to talk about the school and my aims 
and methods. There was something about him 
that drew me out. He listened with the closest 
attention and evident interest. There was some- 
thing about his eyes that I can never forget; 
they seemed to read my heart, and they were full 
of sympathy and friendliness ; and before long I 
was confiding to him my hopes and fears and 
difficulties just as if he had been a brother. 

"I don't seem to remember much that he 
said — just a word or a question now and again 
to show his sympathy and draw me out. I had 



A PERHAPS INCREDIBLE STORY 171 

been burdened with anxiety about one girl. She 
was just verging on womanhood, and, having a 
strong individuality, was a kind of leader among 
the others, and her influence was not always 
good. A few months before, a change seemed 
to come over her, and she became much more 
thoughtful and tender, so that I had great hopes 
of her. But she had been home for the Christ- 
mas holidays and had been very much indulged, 
and passed through a round of gaiety, and all 
her good impressions seemed to have been lost; 
and she was giving and causing a good deal of 
trouble in the school. But now the burden 
seemed to have been lifted, and I felt I was not 
alone in my efforts. 

"Another thing was troubling me. I had a 
friend who was passing through great trouble. 
He had recently gone into business in a neigh- 
bouring town, and things were not going well 
with him because he was short of capital. I had 
lent him what money I could, but it was not 
enough to help him out of his difficulties, and he 
feared he should have to become bankrupt. I 
told my new friend about him and begged him 
to call and see him; and he promised to do so, 
and then rose and left me without my having 
remembered to ask for his name. But one thing 



172 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

he said remained with me. I had urged him to 
come again soon, for he had helped and cheered 
me so much. He replied that he should always 
be near me and I should see him again soon. 

"After he was gone the conviction grew 
upon me that he was the Lord Jesus Christ; 
and from that time prayer became very real to 
me, for I always saw before me that loving, 
sympathetic countenance. A few weeks after, 
I had a visit from my friend, who asked, 'On 
such a night, just before midnight, were you 
praying for me?' It was the night when the 
gentleman had called, so I said I was. 'Well, 
I had sat up late over my accounts, and was 
growing more and more perplexed and troubled, 
when all at once a sense came over me of a lov- 
ing presence, though I could not see anyone. 
My mind was calmed, the difficulties seemed to 
clear up, I saw a way out, and I said to myself, 
"My friend is praying for me." I went to bed 

mm 

and slept peacefully, which I had not done for 
many nights ; and matters after that took a turn 
for the better.' 

"Some considerable time after, one summer 
morning I woke just at dawn and lay awake 
for a time, remembering it was Sunday, and 
worshipping my dear Father in heaven. By 



A PERHAPS INCREDIBLE STORY 173 

and by I must have dropped asleep, for it 
seemed to me that I woke in a glorious place. 
I don't remember many details, save that it was 
very light and very beautiful, and that I was 
surrounded by all I had ever loved, without any 
slightest cloud of misunderstanding or darkness. 
I thought, 'This must be heaven,' though how 
I got there I did not know. I wondered 
whether I should see the Saviour, when all at 
once my eyes were attracted to a blaze of glory, 
and there, seated upon a throne, was the Man 
who had visited me and whom I had been pray- 
ing to as the Lord Jesus Christ. The face was 
the very same, and the eyes seemed to rest on 
me with loving welcome. He was surrounded 
by glorious beings who seemed to be coming 
and going continually. I stood and watched, 
and from time to time a messenger came with 
some tidings that caused His face to beam 
with joy, and I drew nearer to hear what they 
might be. I was feeling such a glow of love 
and gratitude to Him Who had brought me 
safely home that I longed unspeakably to do 
something to show my gratitude, and I thought, 
'If I could only bring that look of joy to His 
face I would be willing to bear anything.' Just 
then a messenger came telling Him of a poor 



i 7 4 MAN IS A . SPIRIT 

drunkard who had been led to trust in Him and 
had given up the drink. Another told of a child 
who had given her young heart to Him; and 
again that look of unspeakable joy passed over 
His face. I burst into tears, saying to myself, 
'If I had only realized when I was on earth 
what it meant to Him for a sinner to be saved, 
how I should have worked !' And I woke myself 
with weeping, and rejoiced to find it was only a 
dream and I was still on earth where there were 
sinners to be saved. 

"The great charm to me about 'Raymond' 
is the proof that such work will be still required 
after we pass over. 

"Hoping that I have not bored you with my 
long story, 

# "I am, 

"Yours faithfully, 

"H. M. MURGATROYD." 

The apparition of the Master Himself, in the 
habiliments of a modern Englishman and speak- 
ing our tongue, naturally lends itself to the 
ridicule of the scoffer. It is so easy to say that 
it was a hallucination or that Miss Murgatroyd, 
over-tired, fell asleep and dreamt it all, and that 
her friend's sense of a helpful presence was just 
a chance coincidence. And indeed I admit — 



A PERHAPS INCREDIBLE STORY 175 

nay, I cheerfully agree — that this case is not 
evidential. It depends on the word of one 
person, and, however excellent that person may 
be in heart and head and in entire reliability as 
to ordinary things, we nevertheless cannot accept 
an unconfirmed statement on such momentous 
matters as are here involved. I therefore do 
not ask anyone to believe the story. I present 
it as a human document, leaving it at that. 

But, while not asking for belief, I venture 
to suggest that suspense of judgment might be 
wiser than complete rejection of even such a 
strange story as this. If Jesus ever lived at all 
— and few doubt that the Gospels give at least 
some sketchy outline of a Person Who really 
existed — and if the dead can at times make 
themselves manifest to the living and can give 
them help, there is nothing a priori impossible 
or incredible in the narrative. Certainly it was 
of an extreme degree, but it was not unique in 
kind. If Jesus is alive and able to order His 
goings, it is reasonable to suppose that He will 
often be with those who love Him and are try- 
ing to follow Him. Usually, as with other non- 
terrene beings, He will not be perceived, but 
special conditions may bring Him into mani- 
festation, whether on the road to Emmaus or 



176 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

in modern England, in some hour of quietness 
and passivity and abstraction from insistent 
sense-stimuli. 

And this experience of Miss Murgatroyd's 
is not unique. I know of other cases. The 
Master seems to be manifesting Himself with 
increasing frequency to His faithful ones, 
though these are not always church members or 
even "professing" Christians; and the experi- 
ences have been unexpected and surprising. It 
seems to me that a Second Coming is not the 
absurd idea that we have often thought it; but 
it will not be so much a coming down on His 
part as a going up on ours. Perhaps the 
Western human race is now evolving or rising 
psychically into a plane in which the Master is 
always manifest; and Miss Murgatroyd and her 
co-seers are the advance-guard, the first to rise, 
if only momentarily, above the matter-mists 
which always blind the spiritual sight of more 
ordinary souls. I suggest this, not as an idea 
to be accepted as fact, but as a possibility which, 
though it would have seemed to me unutterably 
absurd a dozen years ago, now appears at least 
as a hypothesis to be borne in mind and to be 
treated with serious consideration. 



CHAPTER X 

MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES 

HITHERTO we have been dealing with 
experiences more or less evidential, and 
certainly referable to the senses of the percipient, 
though perhaps to some extent supernormal. I 
mean that the phantasms seen, e.g., by Mr. 
Grey, though supposedly seen with his eyes, may 
really have been due to some inner perception of 
a not understood kind, externalized merely by 
force of habit in a familiar form. The sense of 
sight is perhaps the most importantly active in 
ordinary life, for, if it is less continuously so 
than that of touch, it is incomparably more use- 
ful; and it seems likely that with most people a 
supernormal perception, if strong enough, will 
externalize itself as a visual hallucination. The 
facts support such a hypothesis. 

But there are other experiences, not sensory 
ones, which come within the range of our 
present discussion, because they suggest, though 

in a non-objective and non-evidential way, the 

i 77 



178 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

existence of a spiritual world beyond the pres- 
ent one. As in the out-of-the-body cases already 
quoted, the mystical experiences are unanimous 
in affirming that this spiritual world is a great 
advance on our present state. It is the next 
rung on the ladder of evolution. 1 Books such 
as the late Professor William James's "Varie- 
ties of Religious Experience" may be referred 
to for a large collection and full discussion. 
Here I must be content with a few isolated in- 
stances bearing out the earlier quoted experi- 
ence of Mr. Huntley (pp. 71-7). The first was 
sent me by an old friend of mine, who took 
notes of his wife's talk while she was regaining 
consciousness after an anaesthetic. 

"Beatrice is babbling the wildest stuff just 
now. I've written some of it down; it might 
interest you. 

" 'What a long, long way! I didn't know 
it was so far. I'm so sick. Nasty man, Dr. 
MacKinnon; just stupid. Ether is the devil's 
own invention. He made it. Nobody else 

1 Perhaps the snake or rat or blue-devil experience of the 
dipsomaniac is a temporary reversion to a lower plane of un- 
pleasant inhabitants, as educative punishment stimulating the 
soul to turn and fight its physical appetites and to climb instead 
of falling. I cannot feel altogether content to dismiss these 
things as "subjective." That word is no explanation; it is only 
an assumption. 



MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES 179 

could. Why doesn't God give the devil 
ether? It is real heaven heyond, though. I'm 
glad I've been — had the experience. Why does 
God keep us here? Nasty little world ! Beyond, 
we are all one, with no single entities. Here 
we've all our individual little pains and nasti- 
ness. Well, well, well! I know more now, 
and it is something to know a better world 
awaits us.' Here she wept copiously and said, 
referring to the tears, 'Why don't you use these 
to water your plants with? How one's identity 
gets lost — merged in one common whole! Oh, 
why did I come back? What a world be- 
yond! 

This is very reminiscent of a case of 
anaesthetic revelation quoted by James, which 
gave the experient an unshakable certainty and 
sustained him throughout the remainder of his 
life. Apparently such experiences sometimes 
bring such a sense of enlargement that the 
feeling of personality — the old personality, at 
least — is lost; but there is clearly such a feeling 
of joy and more abundant life that the change 
is not annihilation of the ego, but the gain of 
a larger Self by release from the old limitations. 
The pupa has momentarily fluttered its wings 
in the sunlight and has seen the wider horizons. 



180 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

Tennyson describes his own occasional trance 
states, hypnotically induced by repeating his own 
name, in "The Ancient Sage," and the experi- 
ence was similar to these anaesthetic revelations. 
Not that anaesthetics always bring them. 
In my own two experiences I had nothing 
revelational. In one I remember nothing; in 
the other I retained a sort of consciousness, but 
knew nothing except first a sliding-back sensa- 
tion as if I slid backwards out of my body 
as I went off, then a soaring through inter- 
stellar space with a booming in my ears, then 
a distant report which I interpreted as two 
planets colliding (though it was probably an 
extra big tooth being drawn) , then a drop down 
into my body. It was a curious and novel and 
mildly pleasant experience, but with nothing 
specially revelational about it. The sense of 
personality was lessened, and I had no fear or 
self-consciousness; but, on the other hand, I 
had no feeling of inner enlargement, but only 
of greater external freedom of movement. 
Evidently I am not of the right build for 
revelations. 

The next case gives the experience of a more 
promising subject, and is rather exceptionally 



MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES 181 

interesting. The narrator is well educated and 
a very good witness, and, moreover, her experi- 
ence tends to support survival of an enlarged 
personality rather than an absorption or per- 
sonality-annihilation. 

"My own conviction of the undying life of 
the soul, and so of what we call a future life, 
is not founded on the sort of evidence required 
by those who seek for belief in it from com- 
munication with the departed. I believe in the 
fact of this communication, but I arrived other- 
wise at the conviction. 

"I was brought up in the Evangelical school 
of Christianity, and in a very strictly Puri- 
tanical fashion, but I discarded the theology 
when grown up (in fact, began to question even 
in the nursery), and with the theology the cer- 
tainty of future life went overboard. But I 
did not cease to think it probable. I must 
always, too, have had a mystical tinge, though 
knowing nothing of the subject of mysticism. 
I have read a great deal of science and 
philosophy, but, oddly enough, I did not know 
anything of mysticism, not even exactly what 
is the content of the word as used now, till 
after the experience I have to relate, which hap- 
pened in 1909. 



182 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

"For nearly fifteen years I had been 
acquainted with a man who was related to my 
husband, and in whom I recognized so much 
greatness of mind and character that I used to 
think him the only really great man I had ever 
known, though I have known many good and 
fine men. It was said of him, by one who had 
known him from childhood, that 'nothing mean 
could exist in his presence.' He was very 
generous-minded, and always elicited the best 
from the people he met. He was very learned 
and very modest. I knew him under various 
conditions — unmarried, married, and a widower 
with stepchildren — always with increasing ad- 
miration and a very great respect, and also 
increasing friendship — not an intimate friend- 
ship exactly, yet I suppose it was potentially 
more intimate than actually: He died at about 
sixty, and I saw more of him during his last 
illness, or rather, perhaps, saw him more in- 
timately, than ever before, and realized more 
than ever before the depth of the feeling that 
I had for him, the extraordinary light and 
beauty his personality shed around it; and I 
realized also that I was able to give him the 
sort of understanding and mental sympathy that 
lightened the heavy burden of illness and suf- 



MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES 183 

fering — that, in fact, the kinship was felt on 
both sides. I have long felt sure that the kin- 
ship of souls will cause them to 'gravitate' to 
each other in the next life, as 'Raymond' says 
they do. 

"I have to describe this friendship in its 
kind and quality, otherwise what follows would 
hardly be comprehensible. 

"In May, 1909, I heard suddenly of his 
death; it was a great shock, though hardly un- 
expected — yet we hadn't expected it then, as 
he always said when writing that he was better. 
'Xobody could help loving him,' my husband 
said most truly; and several people said it was 
the greatest privilege of their lives to have 
known him. 

"I got through the duties of that afternoon 
in a state of mingled grief and exaltation; and 
when at last I was able to get away alone, and 
think, I realized that, for the first time in my 
life, it mattered supremely to me whether 
death was the end or not. 

"In Masefield's poem, 'The Widow of the 
Bye Street,' the widow says, 'AH the great 
things of life are quickly done.' I little knew at 
that moment what great things I stood upon the 
brink of in the next few minutes. 



l&j. MAN IS A SPIRIT 

"I faced the question: 'Am I to tear him 
from my soul, and to think of him as a memory 
only, or as living still?' But there thought 
seemed to stop. It seemed that he was part 
of me, and if I was alive he could not be dead. 
And then I became aware of depths existing 
in my own nature that I knew not of, had not 
experienced before. I reached down, or up, to 
that in myself which is undying, indestructible, 
and it was linked to another indestructible soul 
with enduring links. I felt that self of mine 
to be eternal, self-existent, and death but an 
incident passing across it, as a cloud may drift 
over the sun. Then I began to reflect on how 
much love there must have been in his nature, 
that he should be so much beloved by all. And 
suddenly something happened — and with a 
shudder of awe I saw Love, as the Divine origin 
of all things, revealed to me, a secret, ever- 
flowing river of Being. It was a flash of mystic 
insight, and from that moment everything was 
transformed. I felt I had reached Reality, I 
had Found. 

"All my life I had been seeking, and the 
quest had been rendered doubly difficult for me 
because, as children and young people, we (a 
large family of nine) were brought up very re- 



MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES 185 

served, intellectually rather forced, but emotion- 
ally quite untrained — a very attached family, 
but reserved in the expression of feelings. The 
result of this was that for long the pre-eminence 
of love in the cosmic whole was hidden from 
me; yet love was always singularly attractive 
because, I suppose, we had been starved of the 
manifestation of it when young. However, it 
had the result that I lavished on my children 
what I wished I had had myself. 

"With the Divine depth thus revealed to 
me the depths of my own soul were in com- 
munion. Divine Love, transformed and trans- 
forming, was the life-blood of my soul; it 
seemed to flood my whole being, breaking down 
barriers and melting hardness, purging and 
renewing and filling me with more love for my 
fellow-creatures than I had felt before, though 
always interested in them and seeking to help 
them. In the days and weeks that followed I 
lived in great stress and strain, for, while my 
ordinary life went on, fresh spiritual knowledge 
poured in upon me. It seemed to me to be the 
new birth of which Christ spoke. I had, as 
it were, been thrust into the spiritual world, 
and knew by direct sight and experience. It 
was a new point of view, as if one viewed life 



186 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

from above and within, in a new spirit. Some 
things I had known before intellectually or 
intuitively yet took a new meaning, and were 
experienced instead of only known. I cannot 
recall much in detail of that strange time, but 
it was one of extraordinary happiness in spite 
of my grief — sorrow was transmuted into joy. 
Afterwards, when I began to read and hear 
about mysticism, I found I knew what the 
mystics know, and could recognize by a small 
sign whether any person or writer had any 
mystical experience. I understood how hard 
Christ had tried to show man how to live this 
spiritual life which He lived — I understood the 
nature of the life of Love. 

"Besides all the spiritual excitement, I suf- 
fered some distress for a time because, though I 
knew pretty well just what I had meant to my 
friend, I was not so sure that he realized how 
much he had meant to me. After a few days, 
perhaps within a fortnight of his death, I awoke 
as usual, early, about four o'clock in the morn- 
ing; but that day, instead of feeling, as my first 
feeling on waking, the realization of loss, I 
awoke intensely happy. This awakening was 
very gradual, and as I came out of sleep I was 
sure that I had been with him, and that he had 



MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES 187 

assured me that death is not entire separation, 
but that in the depths of one's nature there is 
still communion. As I became further awake 
some beautiful words said themselves in my 
mind, as if they had been put there for me to 
find. After this experience I felt perfectly con- 
tent, relieved from all uneasiness. This awaken- 
ing was not out of a dream. My dreams are 
just dreams. Two or three times after this I 
awoke with words in my mind. Once they were 
these: 'The heart cannot imagine nor the mind 
conceive the beautiful things that are coming.' 
Those three last words I was not sure of — they 
seemed to be the meaning, yet I was not sure I 
did not supply them as I became more awake. 
I have also had the curious experience of having 
my mind, as it were, divided into two parts, one 
which was in a condition of vision, and the other 
looking on; and the one which had vision could 
also say things which were a surprise to the one 
which was audience. 

"To return to the mystical revelation. I 
seemed to see Life whole — I mean the spiritual 
life, but this earthly life also as the creation of 
the spirit. I saw how the life of the spirit has 
its own nature, which it lives freely, and that 
there are profound spiritual laws (and in this I 



i88 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

use the word law as we 'do when we speak of 
natural law), and the nature of the life of the 
spirit is the inverse of the natural life, for its 
nature is to give freely, while natural creatures 
want to take and to get. And afterwards, by 
brooding over the Life, I could come to know 
fresh knowledge about it. It was thus that I 
came to see that there is in every man a Christ 
seed from which the real spiritual man is to 
grow. I arrived at this before I read it in books. 
So when I read in 'Raymond' that 'there is 
a little of Christ in everyone,' it was more 
evidential to me than what is usually called 
evidential. I read all poets who have the inner 
knowledge, particularly Shelley's 'Adonai's' and 
some of Swinburne. But still the main im- 
pulse and the guiding and enlightening came 
from within, and presently it urged me in a 
definite way. I had got very tired, and fortu- 
nately was able in July to get away alone for a 
fortnight. During this time I became conscious 
of an imperative, intuitive something urging me 
on to make a sacrifice. I knew it must be done. 
This intimate knowledge is very strange, but it 
is quite convincing. I have never doubted any 
of the revelations of that time, and they were 
always confirmed by their agreement with the 



MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES 189 

teachings of Christ and of great saints and 
mystics. The conviction that possessed me was 
that in the love of the spirit — the real, enduring, 
pure love — there is not, and never can be, any 
selfish desire. Love is not perfect till it can 
resign. All desire to appropriate must be 
purged from it; until this state had been 
achieved there could be no peace. 

"But in the achievement there came a 
wonderful peace and a freedom that could come 
in no other way. Long afterwards I came 
across 'Theologia Germanica,' and the thesis of 
that wonderful book is that 'the I, the me, the 
mine, and the like' must be abandoned before we 
can make our will one with the Divine Will. 
Later I came to see that only when we have 
abandoned everything, everything is ours. I am 
telling you these things to show how true and 
how wonderful the inner guidance was. 

"For some months I went on trying to live 
in the spiritual plane, feeling the greater reality 
of it, and the temporary and comparatively 
unreal nature of our lives here. But it wouldn't 
do. I became perplexed and worried and 
strained, and about Easter-time the next year 
I found I must do what I have read since that 
others in like case have had to do — I had to 



igo MAN IS A, SPIRIT 

'let go' and come to earth again. I found I 
couldn't live my earth life properly if my 
interest was centred on another plane. I am 
sure I was right. I have learned since that what 
we have to do here is to use the material as a 
vehicle for the spiritual, but we have to be 
immersed in the things of this world sufficiently 
to be thoroughly interested in our life here. 
But I had acquired a sense of certainty and of 
freedom and of power. I felt different, and I 
saw that my friends noticed a difference and 
that I could give them something that I couldn't 
give before. In some ways it made life more 
difficult. One had a higher ideal and standard, 
and one wished life to be better. It would be 
easier if everybody else felt the same. I have 
much sympathy with St. Paul when he says, 
'How to do that which I would I find not, for 
what I would not, that I do.' But I find also 
comfort in the way he did : 'It is not I that do 
it, but sin that dwelleth in me.' I wanted to 
make others understand and feel what I felt, 
but I found that the experience is not one that 
anyone can command — it is a gift. I can't 
command it myself. I suppose that if I had 
doubted my own intuition or rebelled against 
the sorrow I couldn't have had it. 



MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES 191 

"You see now that my belief in a life con- 
tinuing after death, and my idea of it, rest on 
this experience, and I criticize the various 
accounts received largely by their content. I 
don't know anything about what you might call 
the 'natural history' of that life, its bodily con- 
ditions; but when I read, as I read in one 
account, 'there is no compulsion here,' I am 
sure it is true, for freedom is the essence of the 
life of the spirit, both here and there; a spirit is 
not forced, but goes where it can, and is what 
it can and as it can be, according to its state, 
which also it can gradually alter. Love tran- 
scends all law — Tame seul ne connait point de 
loi' — though, being free, it will obey law if it 
sees good to do so. 

" 'Love,' says Swinburne, That binds on 
all men's feet or chains or wings.' It is two 
different kinds of love that bind chains and 
wings. The love that can bind or be bound is 
not the supreme love. 

"I do not think there is anything more to 
tell, or, rather, that I can or need tell. I hope 
I haven't conveyed the idea that I feel myself 
to be infallible! I ought to explain that my 
consciousness and self -consciousness must have 
been full of material for such a revelation of 



192 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

reality, for I knew a great deal of the Bible, 
particularly the gospels and some of the epistles, 
by heart, so there was the mental furniture 
ready to be converted into something more real. 
There is a difference between experienced knowl- 
edge and acquired knowledge, and that differ- 
ence is what I felt and saw. There is something 
about spiritual knowledge as it has appeared to 
me intuitionally which I find it hard to describe. 
I am not much endowed with mathematical 
ability, but I know, and can see in those who are, 
how mathematical knowledge is a thing seen in 
its relationships; it is a direct knowledge from 
which, when you have it, you can infer further 
results. Well, spiritual knowledge seems to me 
to have the same sort of quality. You see, and 
you can infer. What you ean't do is to describe, 
unless you are a poet. When I try to put it 
into words it always seems so poor and so flat. 
It loses quality. You see it when you are raised 
above your usual self, and one's words seem un- 
fitted to convey it. A nightingale's song, and 
bluebells with the sun shining through them, 
conveyed to me one spring day what heaven is 
like, better than any description." 

(Mrs.) R. E. Weldon. 



MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES 193 

This is an echo of much that is in all 
mystical writings, even such as those of Richard 
Jefferies and Walt Whitman. Jefferies contin- 
ually exhorts us to "think outside and beyond 
our present circle of ideas," 1 and Whitman as- 
sures us that though "Nature is rude and incom- 
prehensible at first, be not discouraged, keep on. 
There are divine things well envelop 'd. I swear 
to you there are divine things more beautiful 
than words can express." 2 And "I hear and 
behold God in every object, yet understand God 
not in the least; nor do I understand who there 
can be more wonderful than myself." 3 

Pythagoras, similarly feeling the larger self, 

said: "The ancient theologists and priests 

testify that the soul is conjoined to the body 

through a certain punishment, and that it is 

buried in this body as in a sepulchre." So the 

dead are not dead but released: 

They are alive and well somewhere, 

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, 

And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not 

wait at the end to arrest it, 
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd, 
And goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, 
And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and 

luckier. 3 

1 Jefferies, "Story of my Heart," p. 180. 

2 Whitman, "Song of the Open Road," 3 "Song of Myself." 



194 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

From our present point of view it is cer- 
tainly different from and luckier for some of us 
than what was supposed by last century's ortho- 
doxy. Whitman was a prophet, and his insight 
is now being confirmed by collection and exam- 
ination of such facts as those presented in this 
volume. 

One other matter of detail remains to be 
mentioned, because there seems to be uncer- 
tainty about it, and because my own experience 
seems to traverse many statements which I have 
seen about it. 

Although it may truly be said that there is 
no necessary connexion between morality and 
psychic powers, and that a medium or sensitive 
may be of only moderate character or even 
worse, I think there is something to be said in 
qualification. The facts seem to indicate, in 
my opinion, that there is a connexion. It is 
perhaps least marked in physical phenomena, 
which often are manifested in the presence of 
riot very advanced mediums, though even here 
we must not be too sweeping, for against 
Eusapia we have to set Stainton Moses, Home, 
and Miss Goligher, and other non-professional 
mediums mentioned, for example, by Sir Wil- 
liam Barrett in his book, "On the Threshold of 



MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES 195 

the Unseen"; and, indeed, Eusapia perhaps 
offended by her manners rather than her 
morals, and one cannot expect much of either 
from a Neapolitan peasant. But in the less 
physical branches of mediumship I incline to 
think that, on the whole, psychic power goes 
with spiritual elevation. This latter may not 
show itself in traditional ways, as of church- 
going or pious language. It may be tinctured 
with minor defects, such as a rather childlike 
vanity; it was so in Home and with some 
mediums I have met, though not in the one I 
know best, who is entirely and remarkably free 
from it. But, even if so tinctured, the spiritual 
quality remains. There is an unselfishness and 
kindheartedness and unworldliness. They may 
be ignorant, as, indeed, they usually are; but 
they are good people. 

Similarly with the non-professional sensitives 
whose spontaneous experiences I have been 
quoting. The result of correspondence with 
them has been to impress me with the fact of 
their elevation of character. They differ in 
education and many other things, but they are 
alike in goodness and spirituality. And this 
bears out the opinion of F. W. H. Myers that 
psychic faculties represent a forward step in 



196 MAN IS A SPIRIT 

evolution, not a reversion as some philosophers 
have thought. We are growing towards the 
light; the veil is thinning; some of us now see 
through in gleams, and a few with a certain 
amount of steadiness, as in the mystical cases 
quoted at the end of my series; and in due time 
perhaps all the race of spirits who have sojourned 
enmattered on this planet will have risen be- 
yond the necessity of further education in this 
low plane, and will live in that higher order 
which is now being perceived by our highest 
souls — those peaks which catch the sunrise first. 
This is admittedly speculation, and specula- 
tion is a thing I am not fond of. But in this 
case it is based on a fair amount of carefully 
studied fact, and may perhaps be therefore al- 
lowed the name of scientific inference. It is, of 
course, no new thing; it is in the Bibles of all 
the religions. But truth has to be re-stated in 
every period, in the new language, and harmoni- 
ous with new facts, outer and inner. Science is 
discovering the spiritual world which it tem- 
porarily denied through short-sighted concentra- 
tion on the material aspect of things. It is now 
learning that the Real is in the Unseen. 



INDEX 



Anaesthetic revelation, an, 

178-9 
Animals, clairvoyance of, 

120-4 
Animals, survival of, 1 17— 

18 
Apparitions, 78—135 
Astral body, the, 6l, 92 
Athenodorus, 151-3 
Automatic writing, 155-60 

Barrett, Sir William, 16 
Bicycle and will-power, 55-6 
Bronte, Charlotte, 80-1 

Cases contributed by — 
Album, Dr. T. W., 130-3 
Arnold, J. A. Stephen, 

135 
Aston, Miss Winifred, 65 
Barlow, Miss, 124 
Burton, Captain J., 158 
Carter, M. E., 51 
Connor, Miss Kathleen, 

29 
Crabbe, G. B., 69 
Daw, Miss Margaret, 95 
Elsworth, Mrs. K. B., 27 
Farrar, Herbert, 164 



Cases contributed by — 

Grey, Mr., 107-15 

Guthrie, Mrs., 29 

Hinton, Miss Beryl, 70-1 

Holden, Mrs. A., 90 

Holt, Mrs., 119 

Huntley, John, 74-7, 81 

Irvine, Mrs., 103 

Mill, Miss, 116 

Murgatroyd, Miss, 137, 
174 

Pawson, Mrs., 140 

Poole, Miss M. E., 142 

Priestley, Mrs., 122 

Robinson, Edgar, 57 

Vernon, Miss, 92 

Weldon, Mrs., 121, 192 

Wood, Mrs., 105 

Yates, W., 80 
Christ, appearance of, 170- 

4 
Cicero, 21 
Clairvoyance, 45 
Clodd, Mr. Edward, 13, 14, 

16, 17, 18 
Coldness with psychical 

phenomena, 158 
Crawford, Dr., 57 



197 



i 9 8 INDEX 

Dallas, Miss H. A., 141 
Diagoras, 21 

Dog's clairvoyance, 120-4 
Doyle, Sir A. C., 146-7 
Dreams, 21—44 
Dualism, 76 

Eusapia, 194-5 

Fox, George, Journal quot- 
ed, 144-5 

Galvani, 167 

Goligher, Miss, 57, 194 

Hadrian, 151 
Hallucination, definition of, 

79 
Helmholtz, von, 16 
Herodotus, 145-6, 168 

Insanity and spiritualism, 
125 

James, Prof. William, 14, 

178 
JefFeries, Richard, 193 
Johnson, Dr., 105-6 
Jonson, Ben, 22 

Latent telepathy, 160-1 
Light, connexion of, with 
psychic experiences, 119 



Lodge, Sir Oliver, 18, 104, 
125, 188 

"Meeting'* cases, 136-42 
Mersey collision, 62 
Monism, 76 
Moses, Stain ton, 194 
Myers, F. W. H., 45-6, 68, 

79, 143, 195 
Mysticism, 177-96 

Nairne, Miss, case of, 165-6 
Occult Review, 29 

Palmists, 17 

Paul, St., 76, 190 

Pliny, 151-3 

Plotinus, 75-6 

Plutarch, 168 

Premonition, 114-15 

"Psychical Investigations," 

27, 136 
Psychical Research, Society 

for, 19, 23 
Pythagoras, 193 

Railway accident, clairvoy- 
ant perception of, 46 

Rapport-objects, 143 

"Religion and Modern Psy- 
chology," 74 



Sankaracharya, 75 
Shelley, 188 

Subliminal perception, 4-6 
Swinburne, 191 



Telepathy, 25, 58-66 
Theologia Germanica, 189 
Trance, 122, 163 



INDEX 199 

Well-being, feeling of, after 
death, 37, 40, 72, 84-5, 
97, 100, 161 

Whitman, Walt, 193-4 

Will-power, bicycle and, 
55-6 

Wiltse, Dr., case of, 68 

Yorkshire Post, 17 



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